Clara Novello's reminiscences

CLARA NOVELLO'S
REMINISCENCES

CLARA NOVELLO'S REMINISCENCES

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lONDON : BDVimRD ARNOT.D

CLARA NOVELLO'S
(- REMINISCENCES

COMl'ILED BY HER DAUGHTER

CONTESSA VALERIA GIGLIUCCI

WITH A MEMOIR

BY

ARTHUR D. COLERIDGE

ILLUSTRATED

LONDON

EDWARD ARNOLD

1910

All rights resei-ied.

musk: library
university

Of CALIFOR^JIA
BERKLEY

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CONTENTS

PAGE

Introductory Memoir, by Arthur D. Coleridge . i

Clara Novello's Reminiscences 27

Letters 213

265387

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Clara Novello Frontispiece

From a painting by her brother, Edward Petre Novello

The Novello Family .... Facifigpage 48

From a painting

Bust of Clara Novello . . . . „ u©

By Puttinati

INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR

ARTHUR D. COLERIDGE

Clara Anastasia Novello was born in England, June
10, 1818, and died at Rome, March 12, igo8. At the
early age of eleven she became a pupil at the " Institution
Royale de Musique classique et religieuse " in Paris, of
which Choron was the director. But before that time,
her father — a gifted musician — had accustomed her to sing
Handel's and Mozart's music, whilst still holding her doll
in her arms, so that on the trial day, the French examiners
found that the English child was a very exceptional
student, and abnormally gifted with a silvery, bell-like,
clear and ringing voice, which, after studious cultivation,
became a fixture and a life-long possession. The Revolu-
tion of 1830 prematurely shortened the studies in Paris,
and Clara, before her "teens," returned home and appeared
in public a year or two afterwards. Her first appearance
was at a concert in the Windsor theatre, where the King's
private band gratuitously assisted for a charitable object.
A young Italian happened to be present, and ventured on
printing two poor lines, which anyhow had some prophetic
truth in them :

Canta bene quest' uccello
Dolce rossignuol — Novello.

A more solid tribute to her rare musicianship was the
fact that on Christmas Eve, in the year 1832, she sang the

B

2 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

principal soprano part in the first performance in England
of Beethoven's Mass in D. She was then only fourteen
years of age, and it should be remembered that Sontag, in
her girlhood, had in vain implored Beethoven himself to
make the soprano part less difficult. Clara's was a rare
achievement, and the precursor of many arduous public
duties at the Ancient and Philharmonic Concerts and
provincial festivals ; in Worcester it is recorded that, con-
temporaneously with Clara Novello, S. S. Wesley (the
famous organist) made his first festival appearance. But
her great opportunity was yet to come, and this was the
engagement for the Royal Musical Festival at Westminster
Abbey in the summer of 1834. The young girl found
herself in famous company ; it included Grisi, Tamburini,
Braham, Rubini, and others less celebrated. The festival
was a great occasion for England ; Crotch and Turle were
the organists. Sir George Smart conducted. He had been
present as a chorister boy at the Handel Festival in the
preceding century, when Joah Bates (an old Etonian and
Kingsman) had presided as conductor and organist. The
selection of a Cambridge M.A, for so important a post has
always been a mystery to me ; but Sir George told me
that Bates was in every way competent in his double
capacity as organist and conductor, for he was pro-
foundly versed in the Handel traditions which were still
fresh in the memory of living men. The Italians in the
festival of 1834 were out of their element ; Tamburini
alone seems to have satisfied the public ; Grisi and Rubini
made very slight impression. Mrs. Cowden Clarke in
her " Recollections of My Long Life " speaks of " Clara's
enviable calmness and absence of anything like trepida-
tion while singing the lovely air allotted to her, ' How

Introductory Memoir 3

beautiful are the feet.' That quiet truthfulness, that pure,
firm silvery voice, precisely suited the devout words. Miss
Stephens was entrusted with ' I know that my Redeemer
liveth,' and as regards Clara's subsequent singing of the
very song Miss Stephens had then to sing, it was re-
markable for the pious fervour of its pouring forth. Miss
Mulock remarked that she always felt, whilst listening
to Clara Novello's singing of ' I know that my Redeemer
liveth,' that she was performing an act of faith. When
she was at the Court of Berlin some years afterwards,
his Prussian Majesty always asked her to repeat to
him that particular song each time she went to the
palace."

On the memorable occasion of the festival in the Abbey,
Lord Mount Edgcumbe was present, and he had assisted
at the Handel Commemoration in the year 1784, exactly
fifty years before, when Madame Mara was the great repre-
sentative soloist. I once asked John Pratt, the veteran
organist of King's College, Cambridge, in my scholar's
days, who — in his estimation — was the greatest singer
within his recollection, and without hesitation he gave the
palm to Madame Mara. Possibly he was a laudator tem-
poris acti, and his lordship and the organist may have
been inclined to depreciate the style and methods of the
nineteenth-century singers, wherever they differed from
the ancient traditions ; but Mara's supremacy was an
acknowledged fact and has never been seriously ques-
tioned. The programme of the " Royal Musical Festival "
of 1834 was a varied one, for the names of Haydn, Bee-
thoven and less famous men are found in it. Clara Novello
was trusted with a minor part in a sextet from Haydn's
1st Mass, the other parts being given to Grisi, Ivanhoff,

4 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

Tamburini, Madame Stockhausen and E. Seguin. The
sextet was greatly applauded. Lord Mount Edgcumbe's
words are : " This was really beautiful and perfectly
well sung ; as was a quartette of Himmel, led by Tambu-
rini, or rather sung by him, the other voices being quite
subordinate." Braham made his last public appearance
(so it was announced) at this festival, though as late as
1834 he retained all his powers, without diminution or
decay. These had not been used too wisely in the course
of his long career, but the vitiated public taste had much
to do with the lowering of his artistic standard, and a really
fine artist had to sing down to the level of the groimdlings.
It seems incredible that English audiences were never
weary with his pianissimos over such words as " love and
peace " and the bellowings of a bull of Bashan over " hate,
war, glory, etc." Leigh Hunt accuses him of " pandering
too frequently to the vulgarest of public perceptions " ;
but he adds, with perfect justice, that Braham had the
wisdom to change all that when he became the dignified
interpreter of Handel in all his majesty and simplicity.
Leigh Hunt's words were true to the letter : " This
renowned vocalist never did himself justice except in the
compositions of Handel. When he stood in the concert
room or in the oratorio hall, and opened his mouth with
plain, heroic utterances, you felt indeed that you had a
great singer before you. His voice, which too often
sounded like a vulgar horn in the catchpenny lyrics of
Tom Dibdin, now became a veritable trumpet of grandeur
and exaltation ; the tabernacle of his creed seemed to
open before him in its most victorious days ; and you
might have fancied yourself in the presence of one of the
sons of Aaron, calling out to the host of the people from

Introductory Memoir 5

some platform occupied by their prophets." Braham
(wisely shedding the lirst vowel of his real name " Abra-
ham ") carried on the great traditions of Beard, Handel's
own favourite tenor, and passed them on to Sims Reeves
in our own generation. The great composer was eminently
happy in the opportunity of his chief tenors — Judas
Maccahaeus, Joshua, Samson, kept the memories of
Culloden and Dettingen alive in his day, and for years
afterwards the music of heroic type appealed to every
warlike instinct from George the Second's reign to Queen
Victoria's. Clara Novello's success in her very early days
must have been the cause of deep joy in her family ; it was
the starting-point and prelude of a long series of triumphs
at home and abroad. So important an event was felt
keenly by one of her father's most famous friends — Charles
Lamb, whose exquisite fooling called forth a choice
specimen in a letter, addressed to Clara's brother-in-law,
" Charles Cowden Clarke, Esq." " We heard the music
in the Abbey at Winchmore Hill, and the notes were
incomparably softened by the distance. Novello's chro-
matics were distinctly audible (Vincent Novello was
one of the organists) ; Clara was faulty in B fiat,
otherwise she sang like an angel. The trombone and
Beethoven's waltzes were the best. Who played the
oboe ? "

Clara Novello's successes in the early period of her
career were so lucrative and satisfactory that she con-
templated a final retirement from her profession, as far
as England was concerned, though she probably may
have meant to keep Italy and Germany in reserve. She
had many friends and admirers in both countries, as her
subsequent history proved, but her farewell appearance

6 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

in England was actually announced in the April number
of the Musical World, 1837, six years prior to her marriage.
This was the public announcement : —

MISS CLARA NOVELLO

Intending to visit Italy in the Autumn of the present year,
to complete her Studies, proposes to take leave of her
Friends at her

EVENING CONCERT

which is fixed for
Monday, April 2^th, 1837, at eight o'clock precisely.

Principal Performers.

Mrs. Wood, Miss Masson, Miss Clara Novello, I\Iiss
Fanny Woodham, Miss Fanny Wyndham, and Mrs. Wm.
Kny\^ett.

Mr. Braham, Mr. Vaughan, Mr. Hobbs, Signor Begrez,
Mr. Terrail, Mr. Parry, jun., and Mr. Balfe.

Miss Clara Novello has the gratification of announcing
that she has prevailed upon

Signor Dragonetti

to depart from his resolution of not playing Solos in public,
and for this time only he will accompany her in a New
Song, with Contra Basso obligato, composed expressly for
this Concert, by Vincent Novello.

Mr. Mori will play a solo on the violin,

Mr. Moscheles a Concerto on the pianoforte.

Mr. Willman will accompany an obligato song by
Mozart on the cornetto di hassetto.

During the evening will be performed the Overtures

Introductory Memoir 7

to " St. Paul," by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, and
" Zauberflote," by Mozart And Webbe's Double Choir
Glee, " To Love I wake the silver string."

Then follows a list of the orchestra.

Leader — Mr. Frangois Cramer.

Conductor — Sir George Smart.

Tickets, los. 6d. each.

A criticism of the concert in the Musical World of
April 28, shows that Miss Woodham sang a pretty little
composition by Henry Goodban. Novello's song was
called " Thy mighty powers." Willman was not allowed
to come and play " Non piu di fiori " by the directors of
another concert. The notice ends with " All good wishes
for Clara Novello."

In November, 1843, and after her marriage with Count
Gigliucci, Clara Novello withdrew for a time from public
life, and settled at her husband's estate at Fermo, Italy.
Amongst her operatic performances at home and abroad,
two especially have a claim on our notice. She appeared
at Drury Lane Theatre, under Macready's management,
in an English version (by J. T. Serle, a son-in-law of
Vincent Novello) of Pacini's " Saffo." Her sister,
]\Irs. Serle, also appeared in the same opera, and the part
of Hippias was impersonated by a young tenor named
on the play-bills — " Mr. J. Reeves," afterwards better
knowTi as Sims Reeves. " Mr. J. Reeves's rich tenor
voice was heard to great advantage, though in a small
part," such is the critic's record. On May 5 of this
same year, and at Drury Lane, a stage performance of
Handel's " Acis and Galatea " was given, Clara Novello
being Galatea and Staudigl impersonating Polyphemus,

8 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

while Mr. J. Reeves was one of the Sicilian shepherds.
The late W. S. Rockstro was fond of telling a story of
which Clara Novello was the heroine ; it will bear repeti-
tion, a propos of this revival of the English version of
Pacini's " Saffo." Mr. Rockstro, who was at the sus-
ceptible age of twenty, watched the performance with
intense interest ; at the close he was horrified to see the
singer walk up a rocky pathway until she reached the
topmost point of the scene, from whence she threw her-
self down in such a way as to make him think she must
have killed herself, or at least been injured seriously, out of
devotion to her art. He had had the honour of an intro-
duction to Miss Novello, and on the following day he called
to inquire after her health. She received him with peals
of laughter, and assured him that his anxiety was thrown
away. She then explained that she herself did nothing but
remain behind the first rock which she passed in her
progress. A " super " dressed exactly like her performed
the next stage of the journey, being replaced at another
rock by another rather smaller in size. So the succession
went on of ladies gradually diminishing in stature as they
receded, each driven onward by despair, until at last a
small child at the top, with distraught gestures, threw
down a bundle of rags into the fathomless abyss. So
that Saffo herself was safe and sound all the
time.

The Revolution of 1848, and the temporary confiscation
of Count Gigliucci's property, made it necessary for Clara
Novello to resume the practise of her art. Her devotional
nature (it has been aptly said) found its truest outlet in
sacred music, and she withdrew from public life after a
performance of the " Messiah " in i860, a work with

Introductory Memoir 9

which, in her day, she had been as closely identified as
Madame Mara and Mrs. Salmon had been in former
generations. Her death in 1908 was an event which
stirred the grateful memories of music lovers throughout
Europe, and of England in particular. In the flourishing
days of the Exeter Hall oratorios, dating from 1851
to nine or ten years later, she was a star of the first magni-
tude. Some few years before, Caradori Allan may be
said to have divided the honours ; that gifted lady was
in high favour with ordinary concert goers, and an acknow-
ledged favourite with Royal listeners, who delighted in
her society as well as her singing. But Clara Novello,
though more than half Italian, appealed to the ordinary
Englishman in sacred music as no other of her contem-
poraries succeeded in doing. For many years she was
well supported by Miss Dolby, Lockey, and Phillips, all
three artists being excellent musicians, trained to their
professional work from their earliest days, and held in
high esteem by Mendelssohn, as readers of his letters will
doubtless remember. Her own musical education had
been of quite an exceptional order ; it began at home
under the care of her father, Vincent Novello, the well-
known organist of the Portuguese Chapel in Manchester
Square, whose versatile tastes attracted to his house the
" fleur fine " of poets as well as musicians. Pre-eminent
amongst his guests were Charles and Mary Lamb, Shelley,
Keats, Leigh Hunt, Coulson, Charles Cowden Clarke,
Henry Robertson, and John Byng Gatries. The last two
are named as being linked with Vincent Novello in a
sonnet by Leigh Hunt, addressed to " Henry Robertson,
John Gatries, and Vincent Novello, not keeping their
appointed hours."

lo Clara Novello's Reminiscences

Harry, my friend, who full of tasteful glee
Have music all about you, heart and lips ;
And John, whose voice is like a rill that slips
Over the sunny pebbles breathingly ;
And Vincent, you, who with like mastery
Can chase the notes with fluttering finger-tips
Like fairies down a hill hurrying their trips.
Or sway the organ with firm royalty ;
Why stop ye the i-oad ? . . . .

The suppers and symposiums were of the most modest
description ; cheese and beer were quite enough for the
guests, and Lamb was perfectly happy at the evening

parties of his " good CathoHc friend, Nov , who, by

the aid of a capital organ, himself the most finished of
players, converts his drawing-room into a chapel, his
week-days into Sundays, and these latter into minor
heavens. When my friend commences upon one of those
solemn anthems, which peradventure struck upon my
heedless ears, rambling in the side aisles of the dim abbey,
some five and thirty years since, waking a new sense, and
putting a soul of old religion into my young apprehensions
— whether it be that in which the Psalmist, weary of the
persecutions of bad men, wisheth to himself dove's wings,
or that other, which, with a like measure of sobriety and
pathos, inquireth by what means the young man shall
best cleanse his mind — a holy calm pervadeth me . . .
the coming in of the friendly supper tray dissipates the
figment, and a draught of true Lutheran beer (in which
chiefly my friend shows himself no bigot) at once recon-
ciles me to the rationalities of a purer faith, and restores
to me the genuine unterrifying aspects of my pleasant-
countenanced host and hostess." Charles Lamb's whims
and eccentricities were never forgotten in her old age by
Clara Novello, who delighted in recounting them to one

Introductory Memoir 1 1

of her intimate friends (my own cousin) at Rome. Lamb's

insensibility to music probably gave a piquancy to his

welcome in the organist's house, and he more than repaid

the musician's hospitality by poems which showed his

appreciation of the father and daughter, apart from and

irrespective of their professional distinction. Between

Doctor Johnson and Bumey there never could have been

the faintest musical affinity ; they were intimate friends

nevertheless. Coming to later days, Sidney Smith, hurling

frequent gibes at Attwood and Goss, found both of those

eminent organists only too glad to be made the butts of

the unmusical canon. We all remember Charles Lamb's

estimate of Vincent Novello's idols, but a selection from

his good-natured satire will not be out of place :

Cannot a man live free and easy

Without admiring Pergolesi,

Or through the world in comfort go

That never heard of Doctor Blow ?

Of Doctor Pepusch old Queen Dido

Knows just as much, God knows, as I do.

I would not go four miles to visit

Sebastian Bach (or Batch which is it ?).

No more I would for Bononcini —

As for Novello, or Rossini

I shall not say a word to grieve 'em

Because they're living so I leave them —

If this innocent libel made Vincent Novello wince, the
hurt was completely cured by verses from the same author,
which appeared in the Athenaeum, dated July, 1834, and
headed :

TO CLARA N *

The Gods have made me most unmusical
With feelings that respond not to the call
Of stringed harp or voices obtuse and mute
To hautboy, sackbut, dulcimer and flute ;

* See page 33.

12 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

King David's lyre that made the madness flee

From Saul, has been but a Jew's harp to me.

Theorbo, violins, French horns, Guitars

Leave in my wounded ears inflicted scars,

I hate those trills and shakes and sounds that float

Upon the captive ear ; I know no note

Nor ever shall, whatever folks may say.

Of the strange mystery of Sol and Fa :

I sit at oratorios like a fish

Incapable of sound, and only wish

The thing was done — Yet do I admire

O tuneful daughter of a tuneful sire,

Thy painful labour in a science, which

To your deserts, I pray may make you rich

As much as you are loved and add a grace

To this most musical Novello race,

Women lead men by the nose some cynics say ;

You draw them by the ears — a delicater way.

As a qualification of her brother's " Free Thoughts on
some Eminent Composers," Mary Lamb subjoined the
following :

The reason why my brother's so severe,

Vincentio, is — my brother has no ear ;

And Caradori her mellifluous throat

Might stretch in vain to make him learn a note.

Of common tunes he knows not anything,

Nor " Rule Britannia" from " God save the King."

He rail at Handel ! He the gamut quiz !

I'd lay my life he knows not what it is.

His spite at music is a pretty whim.

He loves not it, because it loves not him.

M. Lamb.

Charles Lamb's whimsical assumption of musical
knowledge reaches the highest pitch of absurdity in " An
Epithalamium in the form of a Sonata," which he w^as to
send to Vincent Novello to set to music ; the sonata was
in honour of " The Marriage of Charles Cowden Clarke,
Esq., to Victoria, eldest daughter of Vincent Novello, Esq."

Introductory Memoir 13

" I have attended to the proper divisions of the music, and
you will have little difficulty in composing it. If I may
advise, make Pepusch your model, or Blow. . . . Your
exquisite taste will prevent your falling into the error of
Purcell's fate." This is rare fooling. Lamb had already
confessed :

Of Doctor Pepusch old Queen Dido
Knows just as much, God knows, as I do.

He was also guilty of the lines :

Or through the world with comfort go
That never heard of Doctor Blow.

and yet Vincenzio is recommended to base his music on
the supposed ideals of the two composers.

Mrs. Cowden Clarke tells us that her father's most
eminent pupil was Edward Holmes, author of " A Ramble
among the Musicians in Germany," and of " Mozart's
Life." At school he had been the intimate friend of John
Keats, and his taste for letters helped to the vigour of
style which is conspicuous in his writings upon music.
Under Novello he learned the deep secrets of music, and
for many years was organist at Poplar Church and at
Holloway Chapel. His enthusiasm for his favourites led
him to sacrifice years of his life in Germany, collecting
materials for a " Biography of Mozart," which to this day
is a real monument to that composer's memory. We
shall be pardoned for wandering for a space in the house-
hold and amidst the surroundings of Clara Novello's
home-life, for she had seen some of the choicest spirits of
the age, and such influences largely contributed to the
formation of her character.

14 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

Her name never failed to attract lovers of sacred
music to Exeter Hall ; it was an ample security for
costs, as it enabled the managers to venture on the pro-
duction of such oratorios as Deborah, Samson, Joshua,
Solomon, and other less familiar works of Handel, always
provided that the best leading exponent of the soprano
part was there to interpret it. The soloists one and all
had to wrestle with the language of many of the Handelian
Recitatives. Here is a gem from " Susanna " :

'Tis thus the crocodile his grief displays,

Sheds the false tear, and whilst he weeps, betrays.

With such examples before him, Mendelssohn's fastidious-
ness in his selection of words for his oratorios or
librettos for intended operas is easily accounted for.
He has recorded for all times his admiration of
Charles Lockey who for many years was the indis-
pensable tenor at Exeter Hall, and did duty at the first
performance of " Elijah " at Birmingham. On that
memorable occasion his singing of " Then shall the
righteous " brought tears to the eyes of the composer,
who had only measured words of praise for Caradori
Allan, the leading soprano at that historic festival. In
after years Lockey was succeeded, and his fame too soon
eclipsed, by Sims Reeves, who, after his comparative
failure on the Italian stage in England, found, as did
Braham before him, his true metier in sacred music. His
singing, judged by the standard of to-day, was at one
time rough and coarse, though an admitted improvement
on that of preceding years. In the earliest days of Exeter
Hall and the Ancient Concerts, the soprano section of
the chorus depended on twelve ladies, known familiarly

Introductory Memoir 15

by the name of " The Twelve Lancashire Witches,"
imported specially from their musical county, as being
the only reliable persons to take up the points in the
intricate fugal passages. Still, with some drawbacks
unforgivable by the more fastidious audiences to-day, an
oratorio at Exeter Hall before the days of " Elijah "
was an event ever to be remembered with gratitude,
and specially by the country cousin who came to London
for musical enlightenment. Two familiar figures and
faces in the orchestra were always pointed out to
" the friend from the country " as leading and supple-
mentary features of the entertainment. These were
Lindley and Dragonetti, of whom the late Henry Chorley
tells in his " Thirty Years of Musical Recollections."

" In the Opera House or at Exeter Hall, these veterans
were always hailed with a cheer from the audience. There
was no escaping from the entrance of Lindley and Dra-
gonetti into the orchestra — a pair of favourite figures
whose sociable companionship for some fifty years was as
remarkable as their appearance was contrasted — no two
figures imaginable being more unlike than the round,
good-humoured, comely visage of the Yorkshireman and
that of the great Venetian, as brown and tough as one of
his own strings. On what the affectionate regard main-
tained between them was fed it is hard to say, for both
were next to unintelligible in their speech — the English-
man from an impediment in utterance ; the Italian from
the disarranged mixture of many languages in which he
expressed his sentiments and narrated his adventures.
They talked to each other on the violoncello and double
bass, bending their heads with quiet confidential smiles,
which were truly humorous to see. Nothing has been

1 6 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

since heard to compare with the intimacy of this mutual
musical sympathy. Nor is a pair of figures so truly
characteristic now to be seen in any orchestra ; these two
are among the sights of London that have vanished for
ever." I can confirm the truth of the writer's observa-
tions on these two famous instrumental players, adding a
fresh episode which I witnessed myself at Exeter Hall,
viz., the exchange of pinches of snuff from their mutual
boxes. This act of old-fashioned politeness was always
the signal for a cheer. To be sure, the public enthusiasm
over so trifling an act of civUity was rather irrational.
A lawyer, seeing old Dragonetti convulsed by some recon-
dite joke, veiled under the symbolism of Lindley's violon-
cello, would say : " Well, I suppose Lindley has made a
joke, but he certainly has reserved the point." No two
contemporaneous orchestral players had greater claim on
public respect and attention than the English violoncellist
and the Venetian double-bass player. Dragonetti's fame
was European ; he had been on intimate terms with
Haydn and Beethoven. For over half a century he had
played at the same desk with Lindley at the Opera, the
Ancient Concerts, the Philharmonic and the Provincial
Festivals. At the age of eighty-two he headed the
thirteen double-basses at the Beethoven Festival at Bonn
in 1845. The Exeter Hall audience, probably unconscious
of these historical antecedents, used to cheer the veteran
for the love of his old face ; to them he was part and parcel
of the evening's entertainment ; no one recalling the
oratorio of those days can dissociate Dragonetti and his
less famous associate from his Exeter Hall reminiscences.
I should add in my references to Dragonetti that there is
a lasting testimony to the intimacy between Vincent

Introductory Memoir 17

Novello and himself in the many volumes of music which
exist in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and in other
libraries, with elaborate inscriptions written by Novello,
explaining how the books came to him " from his dear
friend Dragonetti," and how their recipient passed them
on to various English libraries on his departure to Italy
in 1849.

Plain living and high thinking were found so attractive
in the Novello household that Lamb, Shelley, Keats, and
Leigh Hunt were wont to consult the organist on their
private affairs, and be advised by him on matters affecting
their ordinary life. The bread and cheese, the Lutheran
beer, were quite good enough for them, and poor consump-
tive Keats seemed to brighten under Lamb's incorrigible
quips and jokes. He writes to a friend : "I have seen
Lamb lately. Brown and I were taken by Leigh Hunt
to Novello's ; there we were devastated and excruciated
with bad and repeated puns." Leigh Hunt passed some
of his happiest days in Vincent Novello's house : " There
I met my old friend Henry Robertson, treasurer of Covent
Garden Theatre, in whose company and that of Vincent
Novello, Charles Cowden Clarke, and other gifted estimable
men, I have enjoyed some of the most humorous evenings
of my life, in every sense of the word " ; and he links
Novello's name with those of Horace Smith and Shelley,
in terms which do honour to the modesty and unselfishness
of the popular musician. This is his testimony : " Horace
Smith differed with Shelley on some points ; but on
others, which all the world agree to praise highly and to
practise very little, he agreed so entirely, and showed
unequivocally that he did agree, that, with the exception
of one person (Vincent Novello), too diffident to gain such

c

1 8 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

an honour from his friends, they were the only two men
I had then met with from whom I could be sure of the
unmixed motives and entire absence of self -reflection,
with which it would come from them."

The musical evenings were honoured on one occasion
by Malibran, De Beriot, and Felix Mendelssohn ; every
one was in the best humour, and Clara Novello's sister,
]\Irs. Cowden Clarke, has left a record of what happened.
, . , " De Beriot played in a string quartet of Haydn's
with that perfect tone and style which distinguished him.
Then his wife gave in generously lavish succession Mozart's
" Non piu di fiori," with Willman's obligato accompani-
ment on the como di bassetto, a "Sancta Maria " of her
host's composition (which she sang at sight with consum-
mate effect and expression), a gracefully tender air, " Ah,
rien n'est doux comme la voix qui dit je t'aime," and
lastly a spirited mariner's song with a sailorly burden,
chiming as it were with their rope-hauling. In these
two latter she accompanied herself ; and when she had
concluded, among a roar of admiring plaudits from all
present, she ran up to one of the heartiest among the
applauding guests — Felix Mendelssohn — and said, in her
own winning, playfully imperious manner (which a touch
of foreign speech and accent made only the more fascina-
ting), " Now, Mr. Mendelssohn, I never do nothing for
nothing ; you must play for me now I have sung for
you." He, " nothing loath," let her lead him to the piano-
forte, where he dashed into a wonderfully impulsive
extempore — masterly, musician-like, full of gusto. In
this marvellous improvisation he introduced the several
pieces Malibran had just sung, working them with admir-
able skill one after the other ; and, finally, in combination,

Introductory Memoir 19

the four subjects blended together in elaborate counter-
point. When Mendelssohn had finished his performance,
Vincent Novello turned to an esteemed friend, who was
one of the hearers, and expressed his admiration in these
remarkable words : "He has done some things that seem
to me impossible, even after I have heard them done."

Mendelssohn succeeded in engaging the services of
Clara Novello at the Gewandhaus Concerts at Leipzig in
1837. The venture was quite successful, though Germany
in those days was by no means whole-hearted in an
exclusive worship of Handel. It may be that the com-
paratively recent discovery of the " Matthew Passion "
and the first performance in 1829 under Mendelssohn
himself had encouraged the belief that a possible rival
for supremacy had been found in Sebastian Bach, whose
greatness had been vehemently asserted by Samuel
Wesley in England. The feeling in Germany finds
expression in Schumann's criticism on Clara Novello,
in which he puts three questions indicative of a rather
chastened and qualified enthusiasm for Handel, whose
real home had been in England, his adopted country, for
the greater part of his life. IMendelssohn, in a letter
written to the secretary of the Philharmonic Society,
speaks of Clara Novello and Mrs. Shaw as " the best
concert-singers we have heard in Germany for a long
time."

Clara Novello at an early period in her career had
distinguished herself as the leading soprano in " Semi-
ramide," " Puritani," and other operas which then and
long afterwards flourished and held the stage. She was
admired by Rossini in the zenith of his fame, when the
young artist made her first appearance in opera at Padua.

20 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

In her range and versatility of musical knowledge she
more nearly resembled Viardot Garcia than any other of
her colleagues ; if she lacked the original genius of jNIali-
bran's sister, the freshness of voice made her more uni-
versally attractive. It will be seen in the following pages
that, when Crisis and Persianis were still to the fore,
Rossini was anxious that the young English singer should
be secured to take the leading part in the " Stabat Mater "
in Italy. With her clear resonant voice, ranging from C
below the stave to D in alt, the florid music of the modern
Italian school was well within her compass. One of her
chief operatic triumphs was in Rossini's greatest opera
" Guillaume Tell " at Madrid. But it was in the home
of her birth that she achieved her most enduring fam.e,
and at the Crystal Palace and the Handel Festivals she
led on the great army of Handelian worshippers and
" triumphed gloriously." Foreign artists, such as Formes,
when engaged to sing in the " Elijah " and " Creation "
with Clara NoveUo as leading soprano, were awkwardly
contrasted with a lady whose pure singing, perfect intona-
tion, and correct phrasing were unfailing guarantees for
enjoyment. After her rendering of " With verdure clad "
or "On Mighty Pens " in the " Creation," or " Hear ye
Israel," in " Elijah," it was hard work to endure the
murder of the Queen's English : "In long dimenshuns
kreeps with sinuous trace the vorm (worm) " ; or, "I
never trubbled Israel's pease (peace) ; it is thoo, Aharb
(Ahab)," etc. BeUetti was a shade better ; but he too,
now and again, contributed more to the hilarity of the
audience than to the subdued feelings which should
predominate on such occasions. Perhaps the jarring
contrasts added an extra laurel to the unfailing devotion

Introductory Memoir 21

bestowed by a grateful public on a singer who had served
her country for long years so faithfully and so well.

My friend, Dr. Cummings, sends me copies of very
interesting letters in connection with Clara Novello,
reminding me of the strange vicissitudes in her career.
Attention has already been called to these events. In
1837 Clara Novello went to Germany, and at that time
Spontini was Capellmeister to the King of Prussia in
Berlin. He was evidently annoyed by the great reputa-
tion of the foreign artist, and writes in dudgeon to Moritz
Ganz and Leopold Ganz, both of whom were members of
the Royal band in Berlin. The letter would probably
have been written in the early days of February, 1838 :

Je prie Messieurs Ganz de faire jouer dans leur
prochain Concert le jeune Gustave Gavert (un court
morceau) et de venir me parler au sujet du Fest-marsch,
car je trouverai un peu ridicule que Mile. Novello chantat,
pour la 3me fois en public dans I'espace de 8 jours, des
louanges des Rois Anglais au nez de Roi de Prusse.

Votre,

Spontini.

A letter from Clara Novello to my friend written from
152, Via Rosella, Rome, May 10, 1891, is interesting and
important.

Dear Mr. Cummings.

In reply to yours dated 6th May, I did sing
the " appoggiature " as Handel intended, for I was
taught that two consecutive notes, thus noted as in
Recitative, etc., meant " appoggiature " either from above
or below, at singer's choice. Handel wrote mostly for
Italian singers.

I once asked Rossini if a " Cabaletta " might be
varied. He replied : " The repeat is made expressly that
each singer may vary it, so as best to display her (or his)

22 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

peculiar capacities ; therefore the first time the com-
poser's music should be exactly given." These traditions
get lost, which leads to many discussions. I well remember
your wife's father, and my pride and delight when he told
me he had named his little girl after me.

With thanks for your kind expressions,
I remain,

Yours very cordially,

Clara Gigliucci.

Dr. Cammings adds : " Some foolish person had been
arguing with me respecting the tradition of the intro-
duction of appoggiature in Handel's music. To convince
him, I wrote, asking for a line from Clara Novello.

" W. H. C."

I reckon it a privilege to be allowed to print a kind
letter written to Mrs. Cummings {nee Hobbs) : simple
in language, it means a great deal to those who can read
between the lines :

My dear Namesake,

Although not personally known to you, Mr.
Hobbs has told me so much of you which has interested
me that I can only regret my being so busy that I cannot
come to see you, and make up in some degree by writing
a line.

May God bless and prosper all your undertakings,
and continue to make you, as you now are, the pride and
delight of your family ; this is the prayer and wish of
your affectionate well-wisher and godmother,

Clara Novello Gigliucci.

Hereford, Sep. i6th, 1852.

To Clara Hobbs.

My friend sends me in a letter some of his recollections
and experiences during the last years of Clara Novello's
professional days in England. Noscitur a sociis is a good

Introductory Memoir 23

reliable proverb, and Dr. Cummings' words confirm my
belief that on retiring to private life, she left troops of
friends, not one of whom grudged her acknowledged
eminence in her profession. The brightest lamps shine
all the better for being fed with the purest oil. The leading
English soprano of her day bore a character beyond
reproach ; it silenced any whisper of envy or detraction.
Her creed was that of an ardent Catholic, but the fervour
of her devotion, aided by the persuasiveness of her art,
helped largely to make men and women of all shades of
religious opinion wiser and better.

I should add by way of supplementary matter another
quotation in Dr. Cummings' letter.

I knew Clara Novello rather intimately. She and
my father-in-law, J. W. Hobbs, were, in early years, in
constant friendly intercourse, and she became godmother
to my wife, Clara. I travelled with her in England,
Ireland and Scotland during her farewell tour in i860.
Daily contact with her gave me a high opinion of her
knowledge and intelligence, and above all, of her good
heart. She was the personification of kindness. I had
rather a severe attack of illness at Sheffield, when she
nursed me and looked after my wants and comforts. Her
voice was clear, resonant, and beautiful, absolutely free
from vibrato. She had been well-trained, and had inherited
the best traditions from the past. Her method of singing
was admirable, particularly in the management of the
breath ; hence the correctness of her phrasing. As an
example, take the opening of Handel's " I know that my
Redeemer liveth." She sang the words in one long con-
tinuous breath, and thereby preserved the sense. Nowa-
days it is quite common to divide the phrase into three
portions. One day, when rehearsing Beethoven's Mass in D
at the pianoforte, in Store Street, Clara Novello suggested
to Formes that we should try a certain movement again,
remarking that the passage was very difficult. Formes,

24 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

the bass, interposed : "Oh no ; it is Mutter's Milch."
She rephed, " Then, I think, Formes, you must have been
brought up by hand." A well-deserved rebuke, for he had
floundered considerably.

Yours sincerely,

W. H. CUMMINGS.

This evidence is valuable as a corroboration of the
general estimate of the homage paid to a great artist by
a professional colleague. That she was " the personifica-
tion of kindness " even to an amateur, was proved in my
own instance, for on the two occasions when I met her,
she, unconsciously perhaps, bequeathed to me some of the
happiest recollections of my life. One of these was in
the house of a mutual friend, and the other on the platform
of the Philharmonic Society in the Hanover Square
Rooms, at a full rehearsal of a performance which
Sims Reeves was prevented from attending. Sterndale
Bennett invited me to step down from the chorus in his
" May Queen," and sing the chief tenor part with Clara
Novello and Weiss, who made up the trio. On the other
occasion, I was completely taken aback by an offer Clara
Novello made me of singing on that evening any duet I
might care to choose. I suddenly remembered that the
gracious lady had appeared at Madrid in " William Tell,"
a work in which I had recently been well drilled by Schira,
my singing master ; so, with the rashness of an amateur, I
pitched on the great duet in the second act of that opera.
It was selfishly the greatest musical enjoyment I ever had,
and many years afterwards I reminded the lady of my
indebtedness to her for her kindness and encouragement.

I am persuaded that the publication of Clara Novello's
recollections dictated to others or written by herself will
attract many grateful readers.

CLARA NOVELLO'S REMINISCENCES

CLARA NOVELLO'S
REMINISCENCES

On the death of Clara Novello, in March, 1908, numerous
notices on her appeared in the Enghsh papers. The
constant-hearted Enghsh pubhc had not forgotten its old
favourite, though over forty-seven years had elapsed since
her last appearance in England, and nearly a hundred
such notices were forwarded to her family by kind
English friends,* But the notices referred almost ex-
clusively, and rightly so, to the artist only, and many
and pressing were the solicitations on all sides, that
some record should be made of the woman as well, o
her vivid personality, of her shrewd and witty sayings,
of the many interesting experiences of her life, so often
related by her in her own incisive diction, and with
a verve and colouring derived from face and voice,
which gave raciness to many a tale, not in itself par-
ticularly interesting. But it was the very zest which
her anecdotes received from her herself which made me
(her daughter) fear that a repetition of the same, shorn
of their principal charm, would in no way give an ade-
quate idea of the originals, and for many months I

* Quite the best of these, and the most correct in every detail, is
the one which appeared in The Musical Times, April r, 1908.

2 8 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

never gave it a thought. But on looking over her papers,
I came on a packet of manuscripts, in her hand, which
proved to be a sort of memoir of herself, and I felt
that here, perhaps, was what her friends and admirers
had asked for, if the manuscript could be put in a form
presentable to the public.

The reminiscences, clear and precise as to facts,
are not written in chronological order, nor in one epoch ;
many of the incidents have been jotted down separately,
as they passed through her mind, and were considered
worth recording. Of her life after 1872 she says but
little, and no more at all after 1893, the year of her
husband's death ; this, however, is not so much to be
regretted, because her life, from that period onwards,
possesses but little variety, and less interest for the
public.

The reminiscences have no pretension to literary
merit of any kind whatsoever, and were not written for
publication, but solely for Clara Novello's family.

The letters introduced into the text, and added in the
appendix, have been chosen by the compiler both on
account of the writers, and of the subjects they treat of.
The compilation has not been easy, on many accounts,
and for its many shortcomings the compiler hopes the
indulgent reader will find sufficient compensation in
the memoirs themselves.

Clara Novello was born in London on the loth June,
1818, in Oxford Street, the fourth daughter of Vincenzo
Novello, son of an Italian father and English mother,
and of Mary Sabilla Hehl, daughter of a German father
and Irish mother.

The Novcllo Family 29

The theory, generally accepted, that the fusion of
races produces fine specimens of the human plant, was
singularly verified in the Novello family. Endowed
with splendid health, and an unusual fund of physical
staying powers, they each and all possessed intellectual
and artistic gifts of no mean order, and distinguished
themselves all in greater or lesser degree — Mary Cowden
Clarke in letters, authoress of many works, chief of which
— the "Complete Concordance to Shakespeare," — she
began at nineteen years of age, and continued uninter-
ruptedly to its completion, for nineteen more ; Alfred
in commerce, founder, together with his father, of the
publishing house Novello and Co., and pioneer of cheap
music — this, not so much with a view to money-making,
which was a rather unexpected result, but from his
intense love of music, and belief in its refining influence,
which benefit he wished extended to the poorer classes,
cheap music promoting choir and part-singing ; Edward
and Emma in painting ; Cecilia on the stage ; Clara in
vocal art ; Sabilla in music and letters. Their industry,
inherited in equal measure from both parents, was quite
exceptional — " efficiently industrious," as a friend once
truly characterized them. This unswerving industry was
doubtless one of the principal factors of their success
in life. Their practical views, clear perception of worldly
advantages and how best to secure these, were curiously
blended with a complete indifference to money when
possessed, with lofty ideals in art, and an unworldliness
often bordering on childlike simplicity. Over these
apparently contradictory tendencies sparkled a vivacious
wit, keen sense of humour, and a picturesque imagina-
tiveness which produced a combination whose originality

30 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

and piquant charm will not easily be forgotten by those
who associated with the Novello family.

Among the brilliant sisterhood, Clara was not the
least favoured by nature, and, in regard to personal
appearance, quite the flower of the flock. Of middle
height — '• precisely the height of the Vaius de Medicis,"
as a tailor gravely stated, on taking her measure once
for a stage costume — she was finely proportioned,
and her hands so perfect in shape and size that the
sculptor, Puttinati, in Italy, begged to take a cast of
them, as well as to make her bust in marble. She had
delicate, regular features, an exquisite complexion, and
such masses of bright brown hair, that her mother was
constantly criticised for allowing her daughter to " wear
so much false hair," to disprove which Mrs. Novello
would sometimes order Clara to let down her hair, to
the girl's vexation, who, totally indifferent then, as she
was through life, to the criticism of outsiders, felt only
the inconvenience of redressing her magnificent hair, to
lighten the immense load of which she once cut off half-
a-yard !

1820-22

People discuss how soon children comprehend
or remember what is said or done before them ;
this, like almost everything else, is according to
individuals, and not to be generalized. I cannot
have been more than three years old when baby
Florence was christened, in No. 8, Percy Street,
b}^ Mgr. Victor Fryer, chaplain to the Portuguese

Childhood 3 1

Embassy, where my dear father was for years the
renowned organist. I was stood on a chair, being
so small, and much impressed by this solemnity,
can remember every detail of the room. Mgr.
Fryer was godfather to us all, I believe, and Mrs.
Cowden Clarke was named Victoria after him.
This christening is the first thing I can recall,
and of its being in No. 8, Percy Street, because
my mother taught us early our address, in case
we were lost. I wonder if this is why I always
remember addresses better than most things ?

1823-24

My next remembrance is of being at Shackle-
well Green, and of baby Charlie's birth and death,
and being shown him surrounded by wall-flowers —
to this day my best-loved flowers, first greeting
of Spring.

The house in Shacklewell formed the corner
of the "Green," and stood in its own gardens —
a small front one, and beyond the entrance gate,
a row of shady lime-trees. At the back of the
house, called " The Cottage " — such a sweet,
rural sound ! — was a somewhat larger garden,
flanked by big trees, in one of which hung a
swing. Beyond, was a large fruit orchard, and
my favourite resort was its cherry tree, up which
I soon climbed, and used to lie at length on its

32 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

cross branches, which made quite a luxurious
couch, dreaming of deserts and forests, and
watching an Itahan, Sarti, as he worked under
the shady elder trees, which seemed to me quite
a gloomy, lovely forest. This Sarti had been
permitted to take a cast of a head of Mercury
my father possessed, and fond of children, as
most Italians are, would make us balls of plaster
to our great delight.

Every child, I fancy, invents its own idea of
what the stars are — those wonders, fascinating
to every age. My belief was that they were
holes, pricked in the blue sky, through which one
saw the glory of God, and I used even to listen
if any sounds of angels' singing, or harps, could
be audible.

From these delights I was often called away
by my father's pupil, Mr. Edward Holmes, who
amused himself teaching me to sing Boyce's
anthem, " So shall we rejoice," and other things,
after he discovered me singing Di tanti palpiti,
in imitation of a barrel-organ's performance of
the same, and my making some sort of cadence
to join it on to " Cherr}^ ripe."

The cottage had several parlours, all looking
into the garden. Into these often came to tea,
Leigh Hunt ; Mrs. Shelley, widow of the poet ;
Mrs. Williams — later Mrs. Hogg ; Charles Lamb
and his sister. Even thus early I felt those sym-
pathies, and the reverse, which have been mine

Charles Lamb 33

all through life. How I loved dear Charles Lamb !
I once hid — to avoid the ignominy of going to
bed — in the upright (cabinet) pianoforte, which in
its lowest part had a sort of tiny cupboard. In
this I fell asleep, awakening only when the party
was supping. My appearance from beneath the
pianoforte was hailed with surprise by all, and
with anger from my mother ; but Charles Lamb
not only took me under his protection, but
obtained that henceforth I should never again
be sent to bed when he came, but — glory and
delight ! — always sit up to supper. Later, in
Frith Street days, my father made me sing to him
one da}'; but he stopped me, saying, ** Clara,

don't make that d d noise ! " for which, I

think, I loved him as much as for all the rest.
Some verses he sent me were addressed to '* St.
Clara " ! *

Leigh Hunt had ever, to me, a taint of affecta-
tion and self-complacency, and his family was
even less to my taste. He used to call women and
men the fair and the unfair sex ! — true as well
as witty.

Mrs. Shelley I adored, also her six-year-old
son, Percy, who was my tyrant, and I let him
beat me, his abject slave, with his wooden cart,
when the paper cannon-balls were insufficiently

* These appear to be the lines (of a far later date) headed " To

Clara N ," which were first printed in The Athenaeum in 1834,

and are to be found on page 1 1 of this volume. They begin " The
•Gods have made me most unmusical."

34 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

supplied by us little ones to the fighters of the
Battle of Bunker's Hill — repeatedly fought on
the top of a tiny mound by Perc}^, my brothers,
and other boys. Acting plays also, heroic and
sacred, with pinafores reversed, was another
game of never-failing delight to us all.

Mrs. Williams, on the other hand, vainly
spent her blandishments on me ; when invited
to spend some days with her, I hid away, and
when discovered and carried off by her, I so mis-
behaved myself, that she was constrained to send
me back home — and the same happened with
the Leigh Hunt family.

My dear mother was a strict disciplinarian,
but also cultivated the hearts of her children.
As a specimen : One day a poor woman and her
girl entered our garden at Shacklewell, offering
matches and begging. Matches, then, were broad,
fiat, and pointed with sulphur, made into dozens,
and looking like fans. As the girl held the parcel,
it struck us as if she were fanning herself with
it, and this so tickled me, I roared with laughter ;
my mother, entering, told us we were hard-
hearted and rude, and I was ordered to go and
excuse myself to the girl — a mortification I never
forgot — and she added that if money can't be
given, for many reasons, civil and kind words
are ever due to the poor.

Once, in a passion, I hurled several music
books out of the second floor window, and she

Discipline 35

ordered me to go down and bring up each volume,
one at a time. How this mortified me ! I felt
the whole world looking at me, and that the
number of volumes was without end ! An admir-
able punishment, both in lengthening out, and
avoiding undue fatigue to the little culprit.
Another time I threw myself on to the floor,
and distinctly remember trying to cry myself
into convulsions. My mother left me so for a
time, but presently came and stood over me,
saying very gravely, " Get up, Clara, and try
to control yourself, now ; and in future, if you
do not, you will injure your health permanently;
every one will dislike and try to avoid you, and
they will be able to do so, but remember that
you will never be able to avoid yourself!" and
her words made such an impression on me, though
I must have been very little at the time, that I
have remembered it all my life !

Mrs. isovello was a woman of no ordinary kind ; her
daughter, Mrs. Cowden Clarke, in her " Life and Labours
of Vincent Novello," has depicted her as wife and mother,
unselfish and devoted, intellectually gifted, and quite
the ruling spirit in the household. Tenderly, even
enthusiastically, as the father was loved, he was the
whole day from home teaching, and for the short time
he was resting, during meals and in the evening, the mother
instructed the young ones to spare him in every way,
and take to her all their troubles, questionings, and
requests. Clara Novello has often related how it was

36 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

a point of honour with them all, as children, never to
ask " papa " for pocket-money, because he always
gave at once, too busy or preoccupied to " weigh and
consider," whereas they felt free to turn to the mother,
who often gave ear to the little petitioners, but quite
as often denied them.

When about five years old, I went on my
first journey, whither I do not know, only well
remember some of its details. I was entrusted
to a jolly guard, Bonus — well deserved name ! —
who took charge of me, and beautifully he carried
it out, dear, rubicund fellow. I was put, alone,
in the inside of the coach, where I felt very
sea-sick, and at every change of horses Bonus
came to look at me and cheer me up, now with
some lively speech, now with a splendid apple —
the size of my head ! — called " Glories of the
West," as I learnt later, and when the stage
coach stopped for dinner. Bonus gave me to
the landlady to have my face washed — a true
and admirably English refreshment of great
efficacy.

1825

When about seven years old, I was sent to
Miss Betsy Hill, in York, where Alfred was
apprenticed in business, to study under Mr. John
Robinson, a music teacher, and organist to the

A Substitute 37

Catholic Chapel in York. He gave me rare and
short and detested lessons on the pianoforte,
hitting my knuckles with a big red pencil he
marked fingerings with. I was left for hours
daily before the pianoforte, in a room seldom
used, and soon I substituted for Cramer's Exer-
cises any vocal music I could run off with from
the shelves, and thus I learnt to read and decipher
new music, never reflecting that my delinquency
would be discovered b}' my voice instead of my
fingers being hard at work.

My greatest pleasure, and doubtless greatest
advantage, was the Sunday choir singing ; I had
to stand on a bench to sing from the desk, and
soon I knew Mozart's and Haydn's Masses and
Vesper Motets by heart.

One Easter Sunday an extra selection had
been rehearsed, among which Haydn's 2nd — or
Joseph II.'s — Mass, Hy . . . [undecipherable]
grand solo, Mozart's Agnus Dei, and other favourite
show solos, when, alas ! Miss Hill, my kind friend,
and the principal soprano, fell ill. Mr. J. Robinson,
in rage and despair, strode up and down, speaking
aloud: "Who can sing all these? At the last
moment it is impossible to change the music. . . .
What is to be done ? " I went up to him and said
" I can sing them all." He laughed at my ignorant
assumption, but — San Marco ! * Thus I sang all
the solos, and evidently, for " half-past seven," as

* Italian phrase for "There's no choice."

38 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

I styled my age, acquitted myself sufficiently to
earn a coral necklace, my first one, a gift from
Mr. J. Robinson, which he took me next day to
buy, to my wonder and delight.

This was not the first time that Clara came to the
rescue, vocally, of Miss Hill, whose best days in singing
were over ; more than once, when the musical phrase
reached notes beyond the compass of Miss Hill's voice,
she would tell Clara to join in the singing, and when
the arduous phrase was reached, leave her to perform it
alone.

I led a lonely life, though Miss Hill tried to
make it as cheerful for me as she could ; I used
to skip with a rope most days in the courtyard,
and often watch the cook making bread and
raised pies — a great entertainment. Once Miss
Hill made me a pink silk frock, which seemed
to me the most beautiful thing ever created, and
great was my joy when I put it on for the first
time ; but alas ! that same day I upset my plate
of pudding into my lap, and ever after had to
wear it with a pinafore to hide its diminished
glory. One summer, we went to farm-house
lodgings in the wolds, and there indeed I revelled,
riding the plough-horses, or the cows when taken
to be milked, or milking them — a little ! — churn-
ing butter, and washing it under the pump.

In those days and for long after, it was the habit for
men and women to take snuff ; Miss Hill did so, all the

Snuff- taking 39

more that it was considered beneficial to singers, by
keeping all the mucous canals very free. All children
are imitative, and Clara, of course, wished to take snuff
also. Miss Hill, either to indulge her, or thinking that,
in a future singer, it was a desirable habit, would offer
her snuff-box to the little girl, with a " Have a pinch,
luve," and presently gave her a small box to herself.
But, on her return home, the wise mother promptly con-
fiscated it, drawing such a picture of the unpleasant
adjuncts of snuff-taking as effectually to cure her daughter
of any desire for it, even when later, in Italy, she
found all singers addicted to it for its supposed beneficial
effects.

Alfred Novello was in York when the Minster was
set on fire by the religious fanatic Martin, and was among
those who helped to put it out. Martin was heard to
say, when the organ was pealing out its strains, " I'll
stop thee boozzing ! " The " Life and Labours of
V. NoveUo," makes mention how his copying out Purcell's
four anthems, and the Evening Service in G minor,
which were unique in the Minster Library, in the in-
credibly short space of one day, enabled him, " when
the original manuscripts were destroyed by the fire, to
give a transcript of that music to the Minster Library,
which would otherwise have been lost to the world."

1828

When I was about ten years old, I heard
Catalani sing Luther's Hymn, at the Festival in

40 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

the Cathedral. I then madly thought — and per-
haps said — that her much-talked-of C in alt, at
the end of the hymn, was less easy than my own ! !

Soon after I returned to London — to Great
Queen Street, I think — where M. Fetis and his
sweet wife came to see my parents. I, sitting
on my usual square footstool, a doll in my arms,
was suddenly told to sing Dr. Arne's "The Soldier
tired," which goes up to D, also Mozart's " Agnus
Dei." Later I learned that M. Fetis had recom-
mended my trying for admittance to Choron's
Academic in Paris, subventioned by the private
purse of Charles X.

During the summer, I was taken to Paris,
arriving too late for the concours for two vacant
places at Choron's. My father thought it might
help to lessen the difficulty of admission for an
English pupil if I were heard by Rossini, one
of the umpires, and by Choron himself, so, in my
short-sleeved dress, with music-book under my
arm, I was walked to Rue Vaugirard, there sang
"Soldier tired," and "Agnus Dei," before Choron,
the masters of "canto fino" and harmony,
Ferdinand Hiller, and others. Dear old Choron at
once wrote to the Minister Dupin, and to de la
Rochefoucauld, saying I merited admission with-
out concours.

Rossini was at breakfast when we went to
see him, and his enchanting sweetness won my
heart at first sight, awed though I was; he.

Study in Paris 41

being one of the umpires, decided in my favour
also.

Thus I at once entered Rue de Bayeux, as
sixth of the pensionnaires, under Mme. Tardieu,
directress, and Mme. Fanny, the EngUsh under-mis-
tress. The latter accompanied the six of us to Rue
Vaugirard, from 9 till 12, and 2 to 5 for the lessons.
We rose at 6, made our beds, dressed and studied
till 8 ; breakfasted on soup, bread, with cheese
or fruit; walked to school; 9 to 11 " canto fino,"
under M. Boulanger, then "classe a vue " under
M. Ditsch till 12, and home to our second break-
fast, or lunch — a solid one dish, with wine and
water. About i, practice ; at 2 walked to school
for class of separate voices, and chorus practice ;
3 to 5 "la grande classe," under personal direction
of dear old enthusiastic Choron, with red ribbon
in his green "redingote " and cap on head, which,
on the least of his frequent rages, he would push
on the back of his bald head !

This " grande classe " was held in a pretty little
theatre, the part destined for the audience and the
Royal box being empty. Some rare times, when
Choron had picked up a stray child in the streets,
it was made to assist, in solitary glory, at the
"grande classe" from the pit. I have often
thought Mme. Rachel must have been one of
the two tinies I once saw sitting there, in lone
embarrassment, doubtless much bored.

Every year one or two concerts were given

42 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

to exhibit our progress, and to these came the
Duchesses d'Angouleme and de Berry and two
ministers. At one of these concerts I remember
singing Clari's duett "Cantando un di," and made
to stand on a stool, to my infinite mortification,
after which I was taken to be kissed by these two
very ugly princesses.

Clara Novello always regretted not having known,
at the time, that the d'Angouleme was daughter of
Louis XVI. ; she would have looked at her with very
different eyes from those that saw only a " very ugly
princess."

At the house of a rich lady, where I was taken
to sing in an opera composed by her, I saw in
the audience Mme. Pisaroni, considered so plain
that she used to send her portrait as a warning
to managers, previously to signing contracts for
the stage. But I thought her charming in
appearance ; she kissed me, and the lovely
Sontag, who was there, caressed me also. The
composer Paer was an intimate friend of Mme.
Tardieu, and I saw him more than once.

But the little girl was not happy in Paris ; perhaps
because she was a native of the -per fide Albion or
perhaps because of her exceeding youth, which may have
jarred unconsciously on her companions — the youngest
of whom was eighteen — as lowering their abilities to those
of a child of twelve, as a fact they one and all flouted la
petite Anglaise, excluded her from their talk and recrea-
tion, and made her feel emphatically that she was alone.

The Revolution 43

On grand occasions the costume de rigucur for the
clhjes, was a black silk dress. Mrs. Novello learnt this
in Paris, too late to provide one herself for her little
girl, so she left a very liberal sum with the caretaker
for this purpose ; but the woman thought that a cotton
one would do very well for little Clara, and the surplus
money do better in her own pocket, and the child had
to endure the constantly renewed mortification — not a
slight one at that age — of being jeered at by her com-
panions for the shabbiness of her attire and for her
parent's stinginess.

I remember Prudence Tardieu calling me
one day with a " tiens, petite, smell that; you
will like it," and putting under my nose a small
tin of tea. The scent brought such a rush of home
associations that I burst into tears. The acute-
ness of my sense of smell has often occasioned
me trouble ; in later years a large bunch of tea-
roses so swelled the glands in my throat that I
was three days ill in bed, and ever after their
perfume would cause nausea and headache.

When the Revolution broke out, terror invaded
our school — naturally, being a Royal institution —
and I nearly went mad with the fright I endured.
The elder girls, the youngest of whom was eigh-
teen, knew, of course, what I did not, the horrors
that might be awaiting us. News reached us,
occasionally, through one or other of Mme.
Tardieu's two sons. Excited by what was said
around us, we ventured on the third day, when

44 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

revolt was supposed to be over, to look out of
a front room window, and we saw three men,
with strips of shirt only on their shoulders,
and torn and bloody trousers, rush into our house.
The terrified pensionnaires fled, to hide under
mattresses and elsewhere ; I, excluded cruelly,
was left alone in an inner room. I climbed on
to a window seat, one leg over the resting-bar,
listening and watching for the door to open and
admit the bloody men, when I meant to precipi-
tate myself headlong into the garden below — ours
being the second floor over the entresol. Often
have I thought since, that had any one entered, I
should have done the same, and either died or,
worse, been crippled for life. When, very soon
after, kind Mr. Charles Humann took me away
to his house, I slept for three days and three
nights consecutively ; his English wife, my
mother's schoolfellow, sent for a doctor, who
said that such sleep would save brain illness, and
forbad my being awakened, even for nourish-
ment. A little broth was poured down my throat
now and then; but all this I learnt later, for I
knew nothing at the time, being in a sort of
trance.

I returned presently to Rue de Bayeux,
where I saw, more than once, the new king, Louis
Philippe, pass, with Lafayette riding by his side,
infinitely more important to all, evidently, than
his puppet king, whose respectable family life

Home Again 45

lowered him in the eyes of the Parisians, from
the old Royal standard of vices !

Louis Philippe, with true Orleans avarice,
reduced the subvention to Choron's Academy to
so inadequate a sum that my parents thought
fit to remove me from it, and I returned to London,
in Frith Street. Here I led a fearfully lonely life ;
my sisters, Emma and Sabilla were at Bruges,
in a convent ; my elder sister, Mrs. Cowden
Clarke, and her husband were all day busy — she
over her Concordance, and Cecilia at Mrs. Blaine
Hunt's. Only at dinner, and not always at
breakfast, we sat down a large party, after which,
all again separated for their various occupations.
When my father had time, he made me sing,
Mozart's operas chiefly.

1831-32

The first opera I remember hearing was
Weber's " Freischiitz," when the composer was
writing " Oberon.'' But what then, and ever since,
struck me as quite beyond and separate from all
and anything else, was hearing and seeing Paganini !
Haggard — he seemed a ghost — in his hand his
violin, his " Imp," with which he executed marvels
that seemed part of these two superhuman beings ;
nothing seemed impossible to them, and when he
took out a pair of scissors, cut three strings which

46 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

hung down, and on the remaining string proceeded
to play his "Witches' Dance," one seemed to see
the Hghts burn blue ! I felt to love and pity
some poor demon condemned thus to perform
these marvels to mortals, to excite, bewitch and
trouble their rest evermore !

These musical and other treats I owed to my
best-loved friend, Charles Cowden Clarke. He
would say he had known me before I was born ;
and so he had, living as he did years in our house
before he married my sister, eldest of us all.
Squatting on a stool, with slate on my lap, whilst
he shaved, I was taught my sums by him ; or,
sitting on his knees after " tub " in nightgown
and flannel, waiting to be carried up to bed,
listening to his stories, invented or recalled — these
moments were bliss absolute, never forgotten
through life. His nature was sublime in its
simplicity, and so absolutely without rancour; it
was hardly a merit in him never to feel bitter,
however ill-used. He could not forgive because
he never felt injured ; nay, on expressing my
indignation at ingratitude reaped in return of
benefits conferred by him, he would extenuate
such behaviour. This exquisite Christianity of
heart and mind doubtless helped to keep him
young to his nearly ninety years, the loved of
all, most by those who knew him best. He taught
me, as later he taught my children, to love Chaucer,
Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, and other stars,

First Appearance 47

who raise iis above earth. He would read to us
his beautiful lectures, to time himself not to
exceed the one hour promised to audiences — a
mark of respect too often neglected by lecturers
and public speakers. Brevity is the soul not only
of wit, but of many other things. I have always
enjoyed intensely performances in all the arts,
thus given to myself alone — or to very few besides.
Inspiration is shy, and listeners must be known
and felt to be in perfect unison of soul with the
performer, to the extent of having their presence
partially ignored by him. Then, only, does the
soul come out and fully expand.

When thirteen years old, chance made me
sing in public for the first time. Mrs. Anderson,
pianist, and Mr. Vaughan, the celebrated tenor,
got up a musical performance in the tiny theatre
at Windsor for the benefit of the composer
Horn's widow. As no soprano could be found, my
father proposed, as a stop-gap, his little girl, just
back from Paris, to sing Spohr's duett from " The
Last Judgment," with Mr. Vaughan, and Martini's
French romance *' Plaisir d'amour." And so it
was arranged, my father accompanying on the
pianoforte.

This, my first appearance in public, was
attended by a rather sensational incident. As
I was about to go on the stage to sing, dear
practical Tom Welsh, Kitty Stevens' cele-
brated master, asked me, " Do you know how

48 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

to make a curtsey ? " On my replying " No," he
then and there taught me what, ever after, was
considered one of my accomphshments and pre-
possessed the pubhc. During this curtsey lesson,
the flooring of a private box, in which sat my
mother and others, over the side door by which
the performers entered the stage, gave way
suddenly just above me, covering me with dust,
and frightening me terribly, so that experienced
Tom Welsh, telling me no harm had happened,
hurried me out, profiting by this fright to obviate
the fright of first facing the public; and, indeed,
I was so preoccupied by this event that I felt
nothing about the pubHc. I had a bad whitlow
on each thumb, which prevented my getting my
gloves entirely on, and this, to my childish folly,
was quite a disgrace, and preoccupied me also
seriously.

From this time forth I attended " The Choral
Harmonists " and several other music meetings
of my father's creating and under his personal
direction, besides endless private musical gather-
ings. Some rare times my father would take me
to the opera, by favour of some friend in the
orchestra ; thus I heard Gazza Ladra, I Puritani,
Marino Faliero, Matrimonio Segreto, with Grisi,
Rubini, Malibran, Tamburini, Lablache — the latter
as actor, whether comic or tragic, quite as great
as singer. Once, to keep me awake whilst waiting
in the green-room, he enacted a tempest ; sitting

Lablache 49

down, he placed two lighted candles on each side
of his glorious face, and accompanying the play
of the face with a few rare words, he let his face
grow dark. " Now a flash of lightning " — his
eyes positively emitting one — his face grew more
and more sombre, till, the storm at its height,
his face was absolutely terrific ; then gradually
the storm abated, the clouds dispersed, and
sunshine returned. So magnificent a piece of face-
acting I never witnessed and shall never forget.

My mother never allowed me to touch a
morsel at the suppers which followed evening
entertainments, as she thought that the rich food
usual on such occasions would be unwholesome
for me. Once at home, if hungry, I might eat
plain bread as much as I liked ; and later she
repeatedly put me on my guard against the
habit of fashionable "drops" — lavender julep
and the like — as so many genteel names to hide
vicious indulgence in spirits. "If you feel you
really need a fillip," she would say, " order a
good stiff glass of grog by that name, and it will
do you no harm, once in a way ; but you will
probably feel ashamed to order such a thing,
and do without it, which will be still better ! "
I think I owe to this extreme sobriety in eating
and drinking the exceptionally fine health I have
always enjoyed.

Through my father's influence I was engaged
to sing for the entire series of Ancient Concerts,

E

50 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

where I heard all that was best, both as to music
and its performers, and where I had occasion
to show what I could do, often singing at sight
pieces which otherwise would have been omitted
from sudden absences of the other sopranos.
This ingratiated me with the public as being
reliable, and also with the elders in the orchestra,
almost all friends of my father — Dragonetti,
Lindley, Willman, Harper, etc. — and with the
directors, whose momentary embarrassment I
thus relieved. Lord Burghersh I knew well
personally, seeing him often at our house.*

I sang once in an opera composed by the
seven-year-old (?) son of Sir Gore Ouseley, an
infant prodigy, become since Professor at Oxford.
Also I was called by the Duchess of Kent to sing
before her and the Princess Victoria, about my
own age. When I heard Kitty Stevens — later
Countess of Essex — at Sir George Smart's, I made
her conquest for ever at first sight, for on her
singing " Auld Robin Gray," I burst into such
uncontrollable weeping, I had to be taken out
of the room to have my face washed, and be
slowly calmed down !

Clara Novello's simple composure in public was
remarkable, the result probably of entire absence of
self-consciousness. Her eldest sister has told how once,
during rehearsal at the Ancient Concerts, the conductor
would not take the accompaniment to one of her songs
* Lord Burghersh was director in 1832.

Paris 5 1

according to her wishes. After repeated recommence-
ments, he said, sarcastically, " Since my time doesn't
suit you, perhaps you had better give it yourself to the
orchestra ! " But sarcasm is generally lost on the very
young, who accept the meaning of words literally, so
Clara answered simply, " Well, perhaps it will be the best
way," and rolling up her music to serve as baton, turned
to the orchestra with a " If these gentlemen, then, will
kindly take their time from me," proceeded to conduct
her own accompaniment, to their infinite amusement and
approbation, and equal discomfiture of the conductor,
who had no resource but to acquiesce.

1834

When I was about sixteen, my mother and I
went to Paris, where I was to give a concert.
There I met Kalkbrenner, and renewed acquaint-
ance with Ferdinand Hiller, who had been pro-
fessor of harmony at Choron's when I, being too
young for such abstruse lessons, used to learn
my catechism instead during the hour allotted
for harmony, and he used to teaze me. His
mother, a dear old lady from Frankfort, had
set up house in Paris ; there we often went, and
once met Thalberg, just from Vienna and un-
decided whether to become professional or not.
But my idol was Chopin, who came often, and
would only play, said he, if la petite Clara would
recite " Peter Piper picked." . . . How proud I

^2 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

felt ! how I worshipped him, himself, as I have
done ever since ! I remember waltzing to his
and Thalberg's playing — excusez du pen I

All these delights were abruptly cut short by
a terrible event. Our beloved Edward, so won-
derfully promising a young painter, had been
sent, two years previously, to Paris, at twenty-
one years of age, to study in the Louvre ; fired
and enchanted by all those art treasures, he worked
and overworked, and one bitterly cold night,
leaving the heated studio where he was studying
from the nude, he took violent cold and broke
a blood-vessel. Returned home to England,
and forced — too late ! — to take medical advice,
he was put under a starving regime — he a giant
in strength, and of active habits ! — and this
mistaken treatment killed him in two years.
His dying state, evident to all, was hidden abso-
lutely from my sanguine mother's sight, in proof
of which she did not hesitate to leave him — in
Hastings, whither he had been taken to benefit
by the sea air — and herself arranged the trip to
Paris, which was carried out.

Calling there, one day, on Mrs. Humann, we
found her in tears refusing to tell us the cause,
unable to so do, it appeared, the more my unsus-
picious mother tried to comfort her. She kept
repeating, " Have you not seen my husband ?
He will tell you; I cannot." At last Mr. Humann
appeared, and with great difficulty and tenderness

Edward Novcllo 53

succeeded in breaking to my mother that she
was the one needing to be comforted and
sustained. When she did at last comprehend
that her son Edward was dead, her state was such
that I feared she would die in my arms during
the following night. It was decided we should
leave Paris by " dihgence," next day, and did
so. How I managed all the preparations, young
as I was, I know not ; but kind friends helped
me. Once in England, my mother had to keep
her bed ; and when she rose from it, nearly six
months later, her hair was white !

The death of this gifted and beloved brother at the
early age of twenty-four, was a grief so profound it never
really healed, and the survivors, to their latest age,
never spoke of " dear Edward," save in loving tones
of the deepest regret. Besides the love felt for this
sweet-tempered, joyous young fellow, his great promise
as a painter had led all his family to look to him for
shedding lustre on their name, as doubtless would have
been the case had he lived. His fellow-students, many
of whom ranked later among England's chief painters,
used to say, when a competition was approaching : " If
Novello is to compete, no use our trying, he is sure to
win ! " And he always did, carrying off, for three years
successively, the first prize at the Royal Academy. His
nephew, who possesses copies made by him of a Rubens
and a Rembrandt, was complimented by the artist
entrusted to revarnish them on the possession of such
" fine examples of those great masters ! "

The young painter had a great predilection for his

54 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

little sister, the singing-bird, and he sketched and painted
her with endless variety — in a group with the mother ;
in a sailor suit, entitled by him, " A squall at C ! (sea) ; "
and finally in the beautiful portrait, life-size. Like all
the others, he had a fine voice and sang charmingly.

I was, from the first, engaged to sing at all
the autumn festivals, Worcester, Gloucester, Here-
ford, and elsewhere. In these I often met and
sang with that artistic meteor, Malibran,* whose
like, all in all, will never again be seen. Inimitable
whether as singer or actress, comic or tragic, a
thorough musician, composer, pianist and violinist.
As for her singing — in a voice, the mere sound of
which caused emotional tears — a single phrase,
one word, in certain moments, sufficed to bring
an audience to raptures of enthusiasm all over
Europe and America, in all places and climes.
She spoke five or six languages equally well,
drew caricatures admirably — she gave me some
— danced the tarantella like a native. What
could she not do ? Impetuous to frenzy she was
generous in the extreme. Once she took cold,
which prevented her, at the last moment, singing
Sonnambula — in English — at Drury Lane, when
crowds already filled the house, hours before the
time of performance. On the manager telling
her, in despair, that besides loss of money these
disappointed people would be dangerous, she said,

* In the " Life and Labours," an account is given of a musical soiree
at the Novellos', where Malibran sang and Mendelssohn played— both
well acquainted with the NovlHo family.

Malibran 5 5

" I can't speak above my breath ; I should have to
do it in dumb show ! " Bunn at once caught
at this outburst as if seriously meant, and on his
knees begged her to try this; and she, fired by
the novelty, did so. The grateful public raved
in praise of this surprising tour de force, and the
sensation it made filled the papers. So Bunn
had the unlucky impudence to beg her repeat
this marvel, to satisfy curiosity, and she, all
impulse, hurled at his head, for all answer, some
music - books she held — offended, as an artist,
to be asked to join in a low charlatanerie, for
speculation.

Another time, the violinist not playing an
obbligato to her taste, after several repetitions he
said something about attending to her own part
and not interfering with his. The passage could
not be played in the way she said. " You cannot
play it!" she retorted; and, snatching the violin
from his hand, played herself the passage as she
wished it. One of her queer whims was to dress
like a man. I saw her arrive thus once in Man-
chester, from London, to a rehearsal, a long
Spanish cloak over her man's attire and a travel-
ling cap on her head. All these odd ways were
never criticised, even in prim England, they
being considered only part and parcel of this
gifted, bewildering being.

I sang Marcello's duett, " Qual anelante,"
with her more than once, at the Westminster

56 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

Abbey Festival and elsewhere ; she would hold
one's hand, and by pressure give the starting
signs, to ensure ensemble, delighted if quickly
understood. She gave me one day a pair of
large silver pins, such as are worn by the Lombard
peasant women, saying she thought my mother
dressed me almost too simply, when in public^
and taking out the pins from her own hair, put
them herself into mine.

1836

At the Manchester Festival, alas ! she sang
her last, and by sheer force of will, suffering agonies.
My mother warmed her stony feet in her lap
between songs, she confessing to a fall from
horseback during the London season, when she
was expecting to become a mother, and con-
cealing it from her husband, de Beriot. A
violent fit of convulsions seized her one morning
in church before she could enter the orchestra ;
four strong men were unable to hold her — she
raised her body above them, on twisted arms like
a table ! My mother nursed her in bed till the very
end, she having no maid even. Thus at twenty-
eight years died this lovable, gifted creature.

Malibran was to have sung at the Worcester
Festival the week succeeding ; to supply one of
her pieces, I was requested to sing, ''With verdure

Mrs. Wyndham Lewis 57

clad," from Haydn's Creation. No orchestral parts
being to the fore, the whole of the London orchestra
there played and I sang — all of us by heart.

On Malibran's death it became known that
I possessed a lock of her hair — unique reward,
given to my mother. Mrs. Wyndham Lewis,
later Lady Beaconsfield, a collector of curiosities,
called on me to beg a few hairs, which I gave, to
please a very dear mutual friend. After this,
she took quite an affection for me, and often asked
me to her splendid house at Hyde Park Corner.
Many a time, after a dinner where one met
endless celebrities, she would take me, then a
young girl, to her bedroom, and show me her
collections. Two large cabinet pillars stood on
either side of her toilet-table, full of valuable
jewels, given to her by her old husband, and
beneath these jewels she kept her curiosities —
pieces of the cords which had hung notorious
criminals, and such like. My horror amused her
highly.

She was clever and elegant, not beautiful,
and after dinner, whilst visitors arrived, she
would sit with a high footstool before her, upon
which she displayed and called attention to her
tiny foot, of which she was proud, and which
was always shod in black satin slipper and open-
worked silk stocking, both embroidered in coloured
flowers ; on her head ever the wide-brimmed,
so-called opera hat, very becoming.

58 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

Old Mr. Wyndham Lewis might have been
her father ; very rich, but less so than an elder
sickly brother who disapproved the marriage. To
conciliate him an absurdly small sum, relatively,
was settled on the girl in case of widowhood.
But instead of the sickly elder brother dying,
he outlived his younger married brother, in-
heriting his whole fortune, except £5000 a year,
settled on Mrs. W. Lewis. When she married
Disraeli, she closed her town house, sold most
of her jewels, and by economizing as much as
was possible, was able to buy, in his name,
Hughenden Manor, thus giving him the necessary
basis for the high position he sought and obtained.
Well and truly to the letter might he say to
Queen Victoria, on accepting for his wife the
title he declined then for himself, that it was
entirel}^ to her he owed his position.

Disraeli was ever in the house at Hyde Park
Corner, got up as if purposely to look like a cari-
cature — long black ringlets and attitudinizing
always, as if sitting for a portrait. But he was
most amiable always — never talkative, as if to
economize his good things. The poetess signing
herself L. E. L., was often there; her tragic early
end in Africa has cast a melancholy over her
name. There also I met Lady Arabella Stuart
from Rome.

My mother planned a prolonged tour of
consecutive concerts, in which I was to sing,

Scotch Songs 59

all over England and Scotland, and was the first
to introduce such tours. She arranged with
local professors, who were to give these concerts,
at very moderate terms, which included mostly
our board and lodging in their own houses. This
often brought about pleasant acquaintances and
private pleasures to me. Thus, at Dundee, the
brother of the concert-giver received us, and
these superior, warm-hearted, stiff-mannered
Scots, became soon real friends, driving us to
all the sites and monuments of Burns celebrity
and explaining them all most interestingly. Here
I learnt to dance Highland reels, and heard this
grave lawyer sing, Scotch-fashion, over his glass
of toddy, a lovely song : " Oh, gin my luve were
a preckle o' wheat," which, he told me proudly,
he had caught from an itinerant musician, plying
him with toddy till he had caught the whole
song. Next morning I sang this song at him
through the keyhole of his bedroom door — a
little to his annoyance, I fear — and ever since it
has remained, unwritten, one of my favourites.

In Edinburgh we lived with Mrs. W. Sinclair,
who taught me to sing Scotch songs in the national
as distinguished from the professional style ;
this procured me in Scotland a compliment I
much appreciated, and which I repeated to her —
" The lassie sings as though she were born on the
right side of the Tweed ! " England being on the
wrong side !

6o Clara Novello's Reminiscences

The first Continental trip I remember making
was about 1836, I think, to accompany my sister
Sabilla to Germany, where she was to teach Enghsh
to the httle six-year-old girl of Baroness H., my
mother's old friend, and be taught in return
German by the old secretary. We landed at
Rotterdam and saw the grand novelty : a railway !
quite recently inaugurated in Belgium. It was
not much to my taste, and ever since I've disliked
it more ; depriving the luckless traveller of all
and any liberty, lock-ups succeed each other, into
which one is barked at by officials, organized con-
fusion and scuffle inducing heart disease ; dead
waits follow until it please tyrannical officials to
start, long after the time appointed, on these
dangerous steeplechases upon slippery rails ;
pufhng engines whistling deafeningly and glaring
lights bewilder the beladen passengers, huddled
together into some compartment, where a sort of
battle begins, between those shut in together,
about seats, luggage, etc. — belligerents having
come to a truce, examine each other ! . . .

Railways have completely destroyed sociable
neighbourly intercourse existing in my youth ;
nowadays all aim at being transported to some
distance from home, seeing nothing, learning
nothing in the various towns they are whirled
through, nor having time to visit relatives or
friends they may have in any of these places.
People save all they can to be enabled to go far.

"St. Paul" 6 1

instead of enjoying what they possess, mixing
among their neighbours, and amusing themselves
and each other economically at home, in dresses
several years possessed and none the less becoming,
as was the case at one time. Now, anxiety to
appear takes the place of all real enjoyment, of
clothes, of entertainments, be these called dinners,
suppers, or banquets ! big names for make-believes
which have replaced all beliefs.

Arrived in Cologne, we travelled by Rhine boat,
the which enchanted me then, and ever since. On
board we found and knew Mrs. Jameson, delightful
author of "Sacred and Legendary Art," also Wm.
and Mary Howitt and their daughter Margaret,
whom I met again years later, in Rome.

In 1837 Mendelssohn's "St. Paul " was performed
in Birmingham, for the opening of the enormous
town-hall. The great organ was constructed under
the direction of my father, who invented for it
a new combination of stops, though his usual
over-modesty prevented his merit in this being
either published or remunerated ; he was, however,
engaged to pla^^ on it for its inauguration ; but alas !
just before the festival he had a repetition of his
former malady, melancholia, and to my mother's
despair, refused to play on this new organ — one
of his triumphs. I sang " Jerusalem," and learnt
that it had been settled with Felix Mendelssohn
that I should sing at the Gewardhaus concerts in
Leipzig during all the coming winter. Such was

62 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

my rapture and excitement that I do not believe I
ate above a few mouthfuls for weeks after. It
was hoped, also, that this change might cure my
father, and my sister Emma was to accompan}?-
my parents and myself, as she was thought to
need rest and change after nursing our beloved
Edward during his last months at Hastings.

1837

To Leipzig we four departed about November,
and installed ourselves in lodgings opposite the
Kiistner Hotel, where we took our meals. This
German fashion of whole families taking their one
o'clock meal in hotels, though obliging one to sally
out in all weathers — and in a cold climate, too ! —
has many advantages : economy, yet with good
and plentiful food ; the custom socialises small
towns, breaks the monotony of home labours, and
induces attention to dress, of all of which advantages
women are mostly deprived, while men enjoy
luxuries at their clubs ! Here we sat next Prince
Henry Reuss, a genial man, who, by writing to
Weimar about us was the cause of our visiting,
later, that famous little model Court — of which
more anon.

Dear Felix (Mendelssohn) had just married
his lovely Cecile, who was kindly helpful to us
many ways, shopping, etc. The amiable numerous

The Kembles 63

family Schunck — which has a branch at Manchester
in commerce— received us quite Uke old friends, as
did many others whose names I have forgotten
but not their kindness. At Christmas parties
were got up, with round games and even romps,
of which Felix and Cecile were the most ardent
promoters, joining in the sport with the most
active. Cecile's sister, Julie, was staying with
them, and married, later, the eldest son of Schunck.

Charles Kemble and his daughter Adelaide
came to Leipzig during our stay there. . . . One
evening Felix gave a reception in C. Kemble's
honour, when he read to us one of Shakespeare's
plays, Adelaide K. lying her full length at his feet ;
after which she sang. . . .

I once saw Charles Kemble act Charles Sur-
face, and again in " The Taming of the Shrew,"
and thought him the handsomest and manliest
creature I had ever seen . . . then ! In quite
another style, equally great if not more so, w^as
Sheridan Knowles, whom I saw act his own fine
play of "WilHam Tell," with Miss Helen* Tree, and
Miss Poole as the lad shot at — an enchanting
personification of this last part I have never seen
equalled.

At the concerts in Leipzig David was the
principal violinist, and he and Felix performed
the concerto written for him by the latter. For
me Felix composed " As the hart pants." I was

* Sic: for "Ellen".

64 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

struck by the entire want of knowledge of Handel's
music evident in Germany, the times, etc., quite
mistaken even by such scholars as dear Felix ; he
started " From mighty Kings " in such a slow
majestic time that it sounded quite absurd, and
I asked him how he thought I, or any one, could
sing it at that rate ?

Mendelssohn's letter, referring to Clara Novello in
Leipzig and addressed to her brother, has been published
before now, but comes in here too fitly to be suppressed.

Leipzig, iSth November, 1837.

My dear Sir,

It is now a fortnight since your sister first
appeared here in public, and directly after it I wanted
to write to you and give you a full account of it, and only
to-day I have leisure enough to do it. Excuse it ; but
although it is late, and I may think that you heard already
from other sides of all the details of her great success, I
cannot help writing you also on the subject and before
all I shout triumph, because you know that you were
my enemy,* and that my opinion prevailed only with great
difficulty (tellers included), and that it comes now out
how well I knew my countrymen, how well they appreciate
what is really good and beautiful, and what a service to
all the lovers of music has been done by your sister's
coming over to this country. I do not know whether
she thinks the same of my opinion now, I am sometimes
afraid she must find the place so very small and dull,
and miss her splendid Philharmonic band and aU those
marchionesses and duchesses and lady patronesses who
look so beautifully aristocratically in your concert-rooms,
and of whom we have a great want. But if being really
and heartUy liked and loved by a public and being looked

* This allusion is to Alfred Novello's desire that his sister should
proceed direct to Italy, and not visit Germany.

Letter of Mendelssohn 65

on as a most distinguished and eminent talent must also
convey a feeling of pleasure to those who are the object
of it, I am sure that your sister cannot repent her resolu-
tion of accepting the invitation to this place, and must
be glad to think of the delight she gave and the many
friends she made in so short time and in a foreign country.
Indeed, I never heard such an unanimous expression of
delight as after her first recitative, and it was a pleasure
to see people at once agreeing and the difference of opinion
(which must always prevail) consisting only in the more
or less praise to be bestowed on her. It was capital that
not one hand's applause received her when she first
appeared to sing " Non piu di fiori," because the triumph
after the recitative was the greater ; the room rang of
applause, and after it there was such a noise of conversation,
people expressing their delight to each other, that not
a note of the whole ritornelle could be heard ; then silence
was again restored, and after the air, which she really
sang better and with more expression than I ever heard
from her, my good Leipzig public became like mad, and
made a most tremendous noise. Since that moment she
was the declared favourite of them, they are equally
delighted with her clear and youthful voice and with the
purity and good taste with which she sings everything.
The Polacca of the " Puritani" was encored, which is a rare
thing in our concerts here, and I am quite sure the longer
she stays and the more she is heard, the more she will
become a favourite, because she possesses just those two
qualities of which the public is particularly fond here,
purity of intonation and a thoroughbred musical feeling.
I must also add that I never heard to greater advantage
than at these two concerts, and that I liked her singing
infinitely better than I ever did before ; whether it might
be that the smaller room suits her better, or perhaps the
foreign air, or whether it is that I am partial to everything
in this country (which is also not unlikely), but I really
think her much superior to what I have heard her before.
And therefore I am once more glad that I have conquered
you, my enemy. . . . And how is music going on in
England ? Or had you no time, now, to think of any-
thing else than the Guildhall puddings and pies and the

F

66 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

two hundred pineapples which the Queen ate there, as a
French paper has it. If you see Mr. Attwood, will you
tell him my best compliments and wishes and that a very
great cause of regret to me is my not having been able to
meet him at my last stay in England.

And now the paper is over and consequently the
letter also. Excuse its style, which is probably very
German. My kindest regards to Mr. and Mrs. Clarke,
and my best thanks for his kind letter and the papers
he sent me by Mrs. Novello. And now good-bye, and be
as well and happy as I always wish you to be.

Very truly yours,

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.

Mendelssohn wrote also to Sterndale Bennett, nth
November, 1837 : " Clara Novello is creating a tremendous
furore. The public is quite beside itself when she sings
with such perfect intonation, such ease and such reliable
musicianship. Half Leipzig is in love with her. The people
clap her wildly, and the other night they even shouted
' Da capo,' until she had to come and sing again. This is
quite an exception with us Leipzig folk " (" The Life of
Sterndale Bennett," by his son). And Schumann, in his
" Music and Musicians," essays and criticisms, says, "Clara
Novello was the most interesting of these (artists). She
came to us from her friendly London circle, heralded as
an artist of the first rank, and this weighed with us in
Leipzig. For years I have heard nothing that has pleased
me more than this voice, predominating over all other
tones, yet breathing tender euphony, every tone as sharply
defined as the tones of a keyed instrument ; besides the
noble performance, the simplicity yet art which seemed
to desire prominence for the composer and his work only.
She was most in her element with Handel amid whose

Weimar 67

works she has grown up and become great. People asked
each other in astonishment : Is that Handel ? Did Handel
write so ? Is it possible ? From such a performer the
composer himself may learn ; when we hear such a
performance we again feel respect for the executive
artists, who give us caricatures so often, because they
leave school too soon ; such art at once snaps asunder
the stilts on which ordinary virtuosity strides and thinks
it looks over our shoulders. IMiss Clara Novello is not a
Malibran and not a Sontag, but she possesses her own
highly original individuality, of which no one can deprive
her."

In Leipzig a German master was engaged to
teach me his language, but his dull, slow method
and the smell of his old pipe made German grammar
insufferable. My mother, though daughter of a
German, spoke not a word of that language, and
out of deference to her, always present, I never
attempted to learn it, parrot-fashion, from the
Germans we associated with, as I managed to do,
later in life, both with German and Spanish. Such
knowledge as I managed to acquire during life,
was ever picked up much as a goose does on a
common !

From Leipzig my mother and I went to
Weimar. The Grand-duchess, sister to Nicholas
of Russia, very handsome still, though not as
marvellously so as that grand creature with his
eagle eyes and stately deportment, was a pupil of
Hummel and quite a pianist.

68 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

In this interesting small place I knew the
daughter-in-law of Goethe, who showed us his
house, his bedroom, the gold laurel crown with
its emerald berries, presented to him by the town
of Frankfort, Byron's works in a silk handkerchief,
as given to Goethe by Byron himself, etc.

The Senckendorfs, Court functionaries, and
related by marriage to my mother's old friends,
the Heldorfs, were most kind to us, pooh-poohed
Leipzig as a commercial, inartistic town, and advised
us on no account to leave Germany for Italy —
whither it had been decided that I was to go and
study for the stage — without first visiting Berlin
and other capitals in Germany, providing us with
useful and agreeable introductions.

At Berlin, Paul, younger brother of Felix,
his sister Fanny Hensel and a younger sister, all
became, at once, intimate friends. Felix's mother
was my ideal of a beneficent fairy ; I was awed
by her, as she sat with her everlasting knitting,
looking like one of the Fates, yet felt intimate at
the same time. She gave me some yards of
beautiful Alen^on lace, which had belonged to her
father-in-law, the great philosopher Mendelssohn.
This treasure I ceded to my mother for her lifetime,
and only at her death received it back again.

We made great friends, also, with the Beer
family ; mother — most venerable — and brothers of
Meyer Beer, their sweet wives and a widow Betty
Beer, my favourite, and with the several brothers

Berlin 69

Magnus ; the youngest, Edward, celebrated
painter, adorer of Italy, of music, and of everything
artistic and delightful, painted my portrait in oils.
The reigning king, who declined reigning,
preferred living in his small palace, and was devoted
to dancing and dancers. His amiable morganatic
wife was a Princess Liegnitz. The real king was
his eldest son, the Kronprinz Frederick William,
afterwards king, the most artistic and delightful
man, but with no gift for governing — as he gave
evidence. His childless wife, Elizabeth, was a
Bavarian princess, whose twin sister was married
in Dresden to Prince, later King John of Saxony.
The future Emperor of Germany was then only
Prince Wilhelm, much given to sojourning in St.
Petersburg, where his elder and only sister was
the empress of Nicholas ; his wife, future Empress
of Germany, was the Princess Augusta of Weimar,
Princess Wilhelm, as she was called, then. Her
elder sister had married the third prince, Karl, a
merry fellow, who would pretend to blush behind
a fan when I sang " Bonnie Prince Charlie ! "
Among these fascinating people I soon became
quite a pet, being called to sing constantly at
their quiet, private, family evenings, when knitting-
bags were brought out and chat between the music
was usual. Supper followed these family musical
evenings ; the royalties had theirs together in one
room, whilst the several chamberlains, de Witz-
leben, de Seuden, etc., the two de Humboldts,

70 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

Spontini, my mother and self had ours in an ad-
joining room. Being a young and merry girl, I
was not best pleased to be taken in to supper,
on one of these occasions, by an elderly man,
I should have preferred the livelier de Solms
or Radziwill. But my mother said, " You silly
girl, you will be very proud, one day, to have been
on the arm of Alexander v. Humboldt ! " — and
she explained to me then who and what he was.

Dear old Spontini, then musical director at
the Court, patronized me greatly in friendly
fashion. His house was a gallery of portraits of
himself, alternating with sonnets in his praise,
busts of himself, etc., all the way to his own sort
of throne room, where he sat on a raised dais in
an armchair with his portraits, busts, medals, and
sonnets all around him. After all, as long as
admirers insist on presenting to artists such gifts,
the recipient must either do like Spontini or else
hide them ! which modesty might offend the givers.
Once, a facetious and very poor old maestro said
to me, " How often are studs in brilliants bestowed
on shirtless artists ! "

Among my many very kind friends in Berlin
was our ambassador. Lord William Russell, brother
to Lord John, both celebrated for taciturnity. Of
this Lord William gave a droll specimen on first
visiting us. Knocking at our door in our Hotel de
Russie, " unter den Linden," he put in his head, in-
quiring, * ' Novello ? ' ' Being answered affirmatively.

Berlin 71

he entered, adding only, " Russell ! " We be-
came soon great friends, and he invited us con-
stantly to his house, sending word sometimes that
I must come to dinner, because there was my
favourite pudding ! I was considered by many to
resemble Queen Victoria in face, which led Lord
William to show me gravely, one day, one of the
first gold pieces of her reign as my portrait compli-
mentarily coined and presented to me ! — one of
his quiet jokes.

The Russian Minister, de Ribeaupierre, and
his lovely daughter, Mme. de Koutouzoff, made
their home like my own to me. I never heard of
a higher and more refined honour than the one
conferred by the Czar on General Koutouzoff after
his victory ; the largest stone out of the Imperial
crown was sent to him, and its place filled by a gold
plaque, on which was engraved, *' Koutouzoff ! "
What eloquence in one word I

I used often to sing at the Opera between the
acts, and heard there Gluck's " Armida" and other
operas, sung by the blond beauty. Mile. Fassman,
and the " Postilion de Longjumeau " by her rival —
in all respects — the black-eyed Sophie Loewe, quite
a different woman, never received in society,
whereas Mile. Fassman went everywhere and was
much esteemed.

In Berlin I had a droll sample of German
linguistic talent and self-assurance : an elderly
literary man, having heard me sing "God save the

72 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

Queen," as I often did, called on me to offer his
own new, and — as he considered — more appropriate
words to that hymn, only one line of which, alas !
can I remember : " Oh, beauteous name which doth
combine both Vig and Tory (Victoria!) ..." I had
the fun of repeating this, years after, to Prince
Albert, when, during the intervals of a State concert,
he came to compliment the artists, and it so upset
his Court gravity that his uncontrollable laughter
attracted notice, and a messenger came to call
him to tea — and order ! I fancy.

I left Berlin with infinite regret, and have
always retained my preference for its amiable off-
hand Court over all the many others I visited
afterwards, though it was then the fashion to
sneer at it — from envy !

Dresden received me kindly, but to me it was
never quite sympathetic, though of course I admire
it. Here I met Weber's son, not like his poetic
father in any respect, an official in some government
office, tall, blond, and ordinary-looking. When I
spoke of his illustrious father, and how greatly he
was appreciated in England as a musician, he
laughed rudely at the English, pronouncing them
ignorant of music or art of any kind ; this to an
English girl was true, heavy, German blundering,
which I resented.

Here I heard Mme. Schroeder-Devrient sing
"Fidelio" with immense success, but her voice and
her singing were, to me, distressingly German ; as

Dresden 73

a wit once said of another German prima donna,
"She is all sauerkraut and not at all maccaroni ! "

The Court received me often and most indul-
gently, doubtless because of the letters I had
brought from Berlin. The Queen, childless, was
sister of the Crown Princess in Berlin, and of the
Crown Princess John, later Queen of Saxony,
mother to the Duchess of Genoa, and grandmother
to our Queen Margherita of Italy. The then King
was an agreeable musician and violinist, and his
sister Amelia was authoress of many dramatic
works which still keep the stage in German}^
This old lady always kissed me, poking her very
pointed nose into my eyes, I vowed laughingly.
These highly-gifted and cultivated royal personages,
though most gracious, moved in an icy, stiff, dreary
state which, after Berlin, wearied me.

" When m}^ eldest son passed through Dresden
more than fifty years later, he found in a cake-shop,
in the Alt Markt, a large cake with my name in
full inscribed on it in sugar ! What a sweet and
constant remembrance of me, evidently of that
period when, as a girl, I sang there. In 1857,
my husband and I passed some few delightful days
in Dresden, spending most evenings at the house
of dear Professor Hiibner and his brother-in-law
Bendemann ; the latter, suffering then in his eyes,
always shaded them with a green fan, to hide from
us, I used to tell him, his insatiable desire for
unlimited singing. He gave me an engraving of

74 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

his picture, in Berlin, on the words which Mendels-
sohn set to music : *' Und halt ich dich in den
Armen." . . . The mornings we passed in the
Gallery, where I amused Hiibner, director there
in '57, by showing him I remembered the former
places of my favourite pictures, now changed. He
told us of the daring feat accomplished on the
grand Raphael, Madonna Sistina, become so
dull in colouring, perhaps from time or the pro-
cesses tried on it, that it was decided to give its
back a layer of some peculiar varnish, to force
back the sunken colours on to the front surface
again. All night he and others kept anxious watch
to see the effect next morning.

From Dresden we went on to Prague, that
most enchanting picturesque, medieval town ;
there I knew Dessauer.

From Prague we proceeded to Vienna, which
proved very kind to me, and I stayed some weeks
there, giving concerts myself, and singing at other
ones in and out of the opera-house and at Court.
The poor, idiotic, big-headed Ferdinand and his
lovely, saintly, Italian empress, gave a State
concert, in which I sang, and to which came the
Archduchess Sophia, twin sister of the childless
Queen of Saxony, with her two sons Francis
Joseph, future Emperor, and Maximilian, future
ill-starred Emperor of Mexico. In a private
audience I had of the Archduchess Sophia, there
was present a dear little three or four-year-old

Vienna 75

princess who delighted me, but caused infinite
embarrassment to the others by insisting on kissing
me several times, because — I was told — she took
me for the Empress.

A queer, charming, hideous, most kind friend
was the Russian Ambassador Tatischeff. At his
dinners, behind the chair of each guest stood a
servant, and behind his own chair stood his two
" coureurs," — amazing figures ! Only ambassadors
had the privilege of keeping such, to run on each
side of the state carriage on state occasions.
Chosen tall, they wore on the head, to make them
look still taller, a high fool's cap three-quarters
of a yard high, with a stiff straight feather perched
on one side and a metal plate in front ; a tight
jacket reaching only to the waist, a fringed scarf
around this, tied on one side, and tight leggings.
To see a " canard " administered to Tatischeff at
the end of dinner was a comical sight ; a grave
servant placed a napkin round the ambassador's
throat, a second held a spoon with a lump of
sugar in it under his chin, a third poured a few
drops of coffee on it, when No. II. emptied the
spoon down his excellency's throat ! Nevertheless
he was extremely clever, amusing and amiable.

Prince Metternich and his young Hungarian
wife were also most amiable to us. They invited
us to dinner, where his little boy, in a red blouse,
insisted on carrying to the guests the gold — or gilt
— plates ; a queer freak. The Prince put me next

76 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

to him, and was as fascinating to my youth as he
knew how to be to the oldest and highest. During
dinner he offered me wine, saying, " MademoiseUe,
do you hke Johannisberg? " "Yes," I replied.
" Yet you have never tasted it," he added,
laughing. '* What I produce does not suffice for
the gifts I wish to make to crowned heads and to
others ! " He declared himself passionately fond
of music.

The celebrated beauty Princess Esterhazy, n(^e
Thurn und Taxis, lovelier at forty than all the
other women, was at Vienna then. It was said
that when her husband was ambassador her beauty
and charm so influenced all the men of the Court
where he resided, that her Government received
thereby unfair advantages over the governments of
the other ambassadors, who therefore all requested
that Prince Esterhazy — or at any rate the Princess !
— should be recalled. Her winning manners were
even more lovely than her face and exquisite
figure. One evening she invited my mother and
me to the opera, sent her carriage to fetch us, and
was in her box to receive us when we arrived.
The performance over, she intimated that her
carriage would take us home and then return for
her, on which I burst out in youthful ignorance
something about our not possibly allowing such a
thing, and never shall I forget the way in which
she merely held up her small hand, with a smiling,
deprecating, "Mon enfant!" . . . which extinguished

Clara Wieck 77

me completely, and I followed my mother out of
the box, quite abashed, to be driven home as she
had decided.

Old Prince Kinsky was in Vienna with his two
lovely daughters, one of whom was said to be the
most beautiful woman at Queen Victoria's corona-
tion, where her husband represented Austria.
Another Juno-like creature was Princess Lichten-
stein, tall, dark, and stately. Some of these grand
ladies ate curiously, twisting their fork the wrong
way, and one of them brandished it about so
animatedly, now to the right and now to the left,
that the embarrassed footman behind her could
not get at her plate to remove it, until she suddenly
lifted the fork over her head, and scratching the
back of her neck briskly with it, he was able to
pounce on to the plate !

Here I knew sweet Clara Wieck and her dis-
agreeable father. My mother used to say I had
a dog's instinct about people, and that she would
not care to trust any one I disliked. I have tried
all my life not to act on the strength of these
strong antipathies — too often justified, however.

I was summoned to Court and most flatteringly
received by the still remarkably handsome grand-
looking Stephanie of Bedan, daughter of Josephine
Beauharnais, and said to be the mother of Kaspar
Hauser — ? Her daughter. Princess Vasa, was
in Vienna then, and this unhappy mother was
trying to reconcile and reunite the princess to her

yS Clara Novello's Reminiscences

worthless husband, who had run off with his
wife's maid.

During my stay in Vienna we were to have
visited Pesth, and I ardently desired to do so,
but frightful inundations prevented us ; many
concerts were organised in aid of the unfortunates
deprived of a roof, in all of which I sang. Musicians
in all times and places contribute gratis to chari-
table performances, besides their own poor ;
musicians and doctors, for charity's sake, give
their time and their abilities gratis. . . .

About this time steamers were first introduced
on the Danube, for passengers from Vienna to
Pesth. Ten years previously, when my parents
visited Mozart's sister — to whom my father took the
sum of money collected by musicians in England,
without which she would have died in a hospital —
they travelled on the Danube on a log-raft, a
small cabin having been constructed upon it for
their accommodation.

We left Vienna, taking letters to the Prior of
the celebrated convent of Molk on the Danube —
nearly opposite Coeur de Lion's prison tower ; the
Prior entertained us most hospitably. Napoleon's
state rooms — he had spent one or more nights
here — were given to our party ; we dined at the
same table with about sixty monks, and afterwards,
in the Prior's private rooms, I was asked to sing.
I chose sacred music ; but though much compli-
mented by the Prior, I saw that he was disappointed.

Munich 79

I sang again, and at last, losing patience, he said,
" But our brethren in Vienna write that you sing
lovely operatic songs ! . . . This opened my eyes,
and I sang " Sonnambula," "Torquato Tasso," and
other cavatinas, to the great satisfaction of the
Prior and of the other monks invited to listen.

We proceeded to Munich, reaching it about
May, and lodged with an English lady, a friend of
my mother's. King Louis, at this time, was at work
on most of the numerous edifices he raised in
Munich, which, when finished, were to make it into a
grand town. These strange solitary, heterogeneous
buildings, starting up here and there, without any
connection, some in swamps, others like the Post
Ofhce, too dark to serve their intended purpose,
and in man}'- ways incongruous and incomprehen-
sible, caused him to be considered a mad expensive
king. I was told of his placing a pair of pheasants
in the pocket of his coat, to take as a gift to some
of his beauties, and the tail feathers standing out
behind him gave him a most comical aspect. He
was amiable though eccentric — ostentatiously so.

His step-mother — mother of the two pair of
twins I had known in Berlin, Dresden and Vienna —
was an elderl}^ imposing woman, historically famous
for her tilts and fights with the great Napoleon.

Munich itself wearied me, its climate was
unpleasant, so it was with joy I left it for Italy at
the end of May.

At Trent a vetturino was engaged to take us

8o Clara Novello's Reminiscences

to Milan, and when he came to arrange terms,
his splendidly handsome person and face, his
voice and kingly deportment, impressed me greatly
after the cruel ugliness of Germans.

No words can express my rapture over the
poetic splendour and beauty, entering Italy. I
who ever had a real passion for nature ! she who
lulls sorrow and enhances happiness, like the true
mother she is ; the various voices of her trees, her
exciting yet soothing varieties, who can enumerate
their divine influences ?

Arrived in Milan, the decisive step had to be
taken as to which master I was to study under ;
chance — as Providence is often called — favoured
us. Going to the post office to inquire for letters,
another person at the same time doing the same,
proved to be kind Ferdinand Hiller. Consulted
on the above important point, he entered with
deep and friendly interest into the question,
naming four, most noted then, as singing masters :
Cav. Micheroux, Neapolitan ; Lamberti, Milanese ;
Lambertini, and a fourth whose name I forget.
" But," added he, " Rossini is now settled at
Bologna ; why not consult him ? " On this, my
prompt energetic mother decided it would be far
better to go than to write, and away we went to
Bologna.

Rossini was to us then, as he ever had been
and continued to be, the kindest of the kind ;
made me sing, experimented by pressing my throat

Milan 8 1

with his fingers, to test its resisting powers,
inquired endless details, and ended by recom-
mending Cav. Micheroux as infinitely superior to
all the others, not only as teacher but as a perfect
gentleman, quite above all interested tricks, usually
practised on debutantes, to the pecuniary advan-
tage of the maestro, through impresarios, journalists
— the press gang ! ! — and such, who prey on
artists.

To Milan we returned, installing ourselves, my
mother and I, in two big rooms giving on to a
court in Via de' due Muri, now no longer existing,
as part of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele occupies
its site, whilst my dear father and Emma returned
to England.

On taking Rossini's letter to Micheroux he
seemed embarrassed, said the season was over,
he regretted ; but he was soon leaving Milan for
some watering-place, therefore lessons could only
begin in autumn, on his return. But my mother
replied that, having come all the way from England
for these lessons, it was perfectly indifferent what
part of Italy we stayed in to study ; so it was
arranged that lessons should begin at once, we to
travel with him to wherever he should decide to
go, and lessons to continue.

Then began a life queerly contrasting with the
gay one led for so long, travelling, at Court, etc.
At nine o'clock came an abbe, to teach me Italian ;
then, accompanied by my mother and with books

G

82 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

under arm, I went for my lesson to Micheroux,
near La Scala. This dearly-beloved maestro, soon
our fast and real friend, was son to the Neapolitan
Minister for that Court to Venice, who, in some way
I either never learnt or forgot, was so ruined that
this son went to Paris to earn a living by giving
lessons. Later, when Bellini began to compose,
and showed signs of writing to please the screamers
and their listeners. Pasta, to protest against this
un-Italian style of music, opened the Teatro
Carcano, together with Galli, bass, the young
beginner Rubini, Brambilla, and a few brave
followers, in opposition to the screamers at La
Scala, and called the youngsters Bellini, Donizetti
and others, to write, under their direction, in one
or two seasons, such operas as " Pirata," " Anna
Bolena," " Sonnambula," *' Norma " and others,
Micheroux being " maestro concertatore al cem-
balo." "Norma " was hissed for three nights run-
ning by the party, or ** camorra," which in Milan
existed long ; but at last " Norma " triumphed,
and the noble Pasta was reinstated at La Scala,
on her own terms ; thus she saved Italian music
and musicians — for a time ! — from ruin. The next
year Bellini wrote ** Beatrice di Tenda " for
Venice ; but it was so hissed that, whilst singing
the great duet between Beatrice and Filippo, Pasta
stepped forward, and, with a grand significant
gesture, addressed to the public the words, " Se
amar non puoi, rispettami ! " ("If you cannot

Padua 83

love, respect me "). The immense applause to
her which ensued allowed that exquisite opera to
be heard to its end.

When Micheroux decided to leave Milan, a
vetturino started containing my mother and self,
Micheroux, and his old maid-servant or " gouver-
nante." Delightful advantages were the day and
evening halts in Brescia and Bergamo to Padua.
We visited the various art treasures contained in
these as in almost every smallest town in blessed
Italy.

In Padua Micheroux dela3'ed some pleasant
weeks before deciding on the baths of Battaglia,
instead of Abano. He introduced us to Contessa
Japelli, a sweet, high-born lady, slightly lame, wife
of the architect Japelli, professor at the university,
and just then much honoured as builder of the
famous Caffe Pedrocchi. This lady received every
evening, Italian fashion, without ceremony ; one
silver oil-lamp with green silk shade on the round
table, giving no heat and sufficient light to con-
verse by ; once a week she had a reception, when
there was plenty of light, etc. At these receptions
any student who was able to sing — usually by
ear only — "orecchiante," — was asked to do so, the
bettermost singers to the accompaniment of the
pianoforte, whilst all the other students assembled
in the street below in crowds, forming audience,
or the " platea " (pit), as theyst3ded it themselves.
At the opera, Mme. Japelli's box was always at

84 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

our service, whether she herself came, very late,
or not at all ; and very soon, also, all my lessons
were taken at her house.

The climate of Padua and the extreme heat
disabled ni}^ mother, and I was a good deal dis-
turbed, the first days, to have to go out alone to
the post-office for our letters, though wearing a
thick black lace veil hanging over my poke bonnet,
as the fashion was then. But when the students
assembled there for the same purpose, all fell back
in a row, making way for me to go first to the
pigeon-hole, as " ITnglesina che canta," my
greatest difficulty was to keep serious till I could
reach home and make merry over it with my
mother.*

From out hotel windows on the piazza, opposite
the university, I witnessed one day the solemn
funeral of a young student. Laid out, in full dress,
on the bier, he was borne by his companions on
their shoulders, also in full dress, bareheaded and
so handsome ! The procession stopped before the
university, entered the portal, thrice raised and
thrice lowered to the ground the bier, in salutation,
then proceeded to the burial ground.

Japelli, his friends, and ourselves went by kind
invitation to spend one day at Count C.'s new
villa, built in rather cockney fashion by Japelli,
and considered a marvel. I sang in the grotto to

* It was inadmissible in Italy at that time, and indeed up to
quite lately, for any unmarried lady, even much older than Clara
Novello, to walk out alone.

La Battaglia 85

my dear professors, and then we had lunch, when,
on my mother's admiring some flowers on the table,
our young host said, " Ah ! naturally ! you have
no flowers in England ; it is impossible to grow any
there, being too cold a climate ! " . . . ! !

We left Padua, much to my regret, for the
baths of La Battaglia in the Euganean hills. Here
we had a lodging in common — one room with a
piano was common to Micheroux and ourselves and
next his bedroom. For hours I practised and,
often through the open door, while reposing after
his bath, he would call out instructions and cor-
rections ; later a long lesson, and most evenings
again singing, reading operas new to me ; thus
five hours' lesson per day. Besides which this
elegantly-cultured gentleman gave me books to
read — all Metastasio among others — and helped
me to comprehend their beauties. We drove with
him to Arqua, to Petrarch's tomb, whence some
English vandal had robbed a finger bone ! to
obtain which he had broken off a corner of the
stone sarcophagus. Another drive was to a
splendid villa left to the hated Duke of Modena
by an infatuated self-made man on condition the
duke would admit he was his relative ! Of course
the duke instantly became his near and dear
relative ... in Adam ! What struck me most
in this villa was a tank or pond, with curtains
which could be let down when a bath was desired
in this open-air style. It reminded me of Susanna

86 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

and the two elders, and was quite oriental and
strikingly un-English. My mother would sit under
the vines embroidering, while I strolled alone, as
far as I dared, once into a villa led to from a vine-
37ard by an immense straight staircase, some three
or four hundred steps, it seemed to me !

When Micheroux's cure was completed, we
went to Venice, to my rapture ! Here I revelled,
in gondola, visiting endless art-galleries and
churches, buying exquisite fruit for a few halfpence,
from stacks of such in floating boats, or landing at
any picturesque market for this purpose, followed
by our gondolier with a basket. Micheroux
pointed out to us the palace his father had resided
in when Neapolitan ambassador. The evenings
we spent floating about in the moonlight, feeling
there was absolutely more moonlight in Venice
than anywhere else in the world, or else w^andering
to the Piazza San Marco, and sitting there till
midnight as unmolested by crowds of all degrees
as if sitting in our own drawing-room, listening to
the never-failing singers — and what good singers !
— guitar players and such without end. One, a
favourite tenor of ours, told us he was, by day, a
shoemaker in Mestre, but made more by singing
at night on the piazza. We used to walk home,
alone, and were never once noticed, much less
annoyed.

My mother shared my enthusiasm for Venice,
and declared that there was heaven and there was

La Scala 87

earth, and that Venice was somewhere between
the two, and to her I would say that an indis-
pensable adjunct of Venice should be a lover with
a guitar, to serenade one nightly below one's
window !

This El3^sium lasted some ten or twelve days,
then back to Milan by diligence, when prose life
set in again, between two walls, alias " Via de' due
Muri," at Campiotti's where the food was poor,
and where we were nearly asphyxiated one evening
by the fumes of charcoal from a brazier, brought
in to warm us, the chimney being unavailable,
because not swept by the landlord to save the
expense. Here we lived, close prisoners, except
for necessary walks to and from lessons, or to the
opera, which Micheroux considered as necessary
as lessons, to learn what to imitate and what to
avoid.

My mother and I first, and soon other students
also, taking courage and example from us, occupied
regularly, at La Scala, the first row of seats behind
the stalls, which we secured by going as soon as
the doors were opened, an hour before the opera
commenced — spending that hour in reading. This
we did rather than ascend to the fourth tier,
dangerous to my mother on account of the many
stairs, where heat was great, the expense infinitely
higher than simple pit places, and where no view
was to be obtained even in the front. This daring
innovation on our part caused at first much and

88 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

rather rude staring and comments, but by
systematically ignoring it all. it ceased after a
while.*

I was charmed with Verdi's first opera, ** Conte
di San Bonifazio," with Sabia and Marini in
" Ivanoe," with Cerito in " Silfide," and other
lovely ballets, and with the great " mimo," Clisio
Catte, my future master, in stage-walking and
action. His attitudes and ballet action, all in
dumb show, were most expressive. He was the
master of Spohie Loewe and of all the rising
young debutantes. His costumes were amazing ;
he would appear at nine o'clock in the morning,
to give me lessons, either at home or on La Scala
stage, with a hat cocked all on one side, a coat of
light green, pantaloons striped white and pink, a
lemon-coloured waistcoat, coloured tie, light gloves,
and shiny leather shoes on bright-coloured stock-
ings ! But he was a true, earnest artist, revering
his own line of art, and enduring once the pain of
a dislocated shoulder on the stage — caused by one
of his death-falls — rather than, by movement or
cry, destroy the effect on the audience.

The many letters of introduction we had
brought with us to Milan were, by Rossini's
advice, never delivered, to avoid distractions from
study, and taking cold, etc. Thus we made few

* At that time no ladies went even to the stalls, and if they
ventured to do so — escorted by a gentleman, of course — they would
dress so quietly as to avoid being observed.

Heidelberg 89

or no acquaintances, one of the few being Count
Neipperg, one of Marie Louise's many children —
amiable, curly-headed young German — and old
Ricordi, always in his shop opposite La Scala,
where I was abonnee for music.

Towards spring my mother decided, for many
family reasons, to return home, and I was to give
concerts eii route at the many fashionable resorts
on the Rhine, such as Wiesbaden, Coblenz, Mainz,
Heidelberg, etc., as other artists did. In all these
towns, at that time and till 1870, gambling went
on all day and all night, in large splendid saloons,
built for the purpose, and I have often admired —
on thinking back — my mother's rare and admirable
self-control in never allowing herself to be tempted
to try her luck, of which she had received singular
proofs, not only when, as a young girl, she won a
large sum in one of the last lotteries permitted in
England, but all through her life, in charity raffles
in which she had taken tickets.

I fell in love with exquisite romantic Heidelberg,
and induced my mother to mount a donkey and
be carried up to the castle and woods, repeating
this equestrian feat night after night ; she, my
eldest sister, Mrs. Cowden Clarke — who had joined
us on the Rhine — and myself, would wander there
for hours, listening to the myriads of loudly
singing nightingales. Often, sitting far above the
Neckar, I sang, amused by the echo, and observing
that the birds came nearer and nearer to outsing

90 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

me, as it seemed ! We always remained quite by
ourselves, fortunately.

Returned home we found my dear father's
health restored, to a certain degree, and I recom-
menced singing as before ; but soon it was decided
I should go to Russia. My mother and I set out,
and en route I gave concerts in Berlin, Konigsberg,
Dantzig, Gottingen and elsewhere. In Dantzig,
our consul, a German, gave us a dinner, where I
was told by a guest that I should meet at the
evening reception which ensued at the casino, the
consul's four wives ! the three former ones,
divorced, besides the two daughters by some of
them, and the fourth actual wife, present at
dinner ! On leaving Dantzig, our carriage was
filled with big boxes of its "marzipan" and other
sweets, one enthusiastic baker throwing in, besides,
a whole list of his cakes, several named after me.
One part of the town, quite separate from the
other, consisting entirely of grain warehouses,
impressed me greatly.

We hastened on to St. Petersburg for Christmas,
and lodged at a private boarding-house kept by
an English widow, Wilson, and her two daughters,
where we had two bedrooms, of w^hich one w^e
converted into a sitting-room, though our meals
were taken and many hours spent with the other
boarders, all non-Russians. The English Foreign
Office officials all in turn stayed here, and a few
Germans, high officials and cultivated gentlemen.

St. Petersburg 91

I sang in public more than once, but the main
object of our coming, the Empress, for whom we
had letters from Berlin, fell ill — from eating
" blimm," it was said, a cake made of oil batter,
of which she was very fond — and for weeks could
not see or hear me. Add to this serious mischance
a still worse happened. I had paled somewhat,
living " a la Russe," in heated un-aired rooms,
and my mother, thinking it would reanimate me,
made me walk briskly in a fur-lined cloak. I did
so, got over-heated, and I, who never took cold,
got a bad sore throat in the frozen fog called air
in St. Petersburg — the reverse of saint in any and
every respect. It ever reminded me of one of
Dante's sections of " Inferno," Dante, like myself,
holding hell to be cold ! ! I learnt to know by
the evil smell when rooms were bedrooms ; divided
into half by a wooden green-silk-covered screen,
in front of which, never aired, double-windowed,
and heated by a hot stove from outside, one was
received. I, who have the misfortune to detect
the decomposition of air, and always live by pre-
ference in a draught of fresh air, cannot describe
what I have suffered all my life when in gas-lighted
halls, in crowds of breaths and of reeking, steaming
clothes, giving off their perverted vapours, I have
had to sing and smile through it all ! I, whose
appetite is taken away by the mixed odours of
grand dinners, and who have been made ill by the
strong scent of tea-roses ! . . . One morning we

92 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

had to be received rather early by a prince-
minister ; he appeared in gorgeous Persian wrapper,
but beneath this his shirt-cuffs could be seen,
cane-coloured with greasy long wear, seldom if
ever washed !

Thalberg was at this time in St. Petersburg.
I had known him well, already in England, where
I had sung at his first small concert. He and I
were called to an evening performance at the palace
of the Grand-Duchess Michael. There that hand-
some, most amiable lady invited us both to take
tea with her. Whilst she discoursed with Thalberg,
he, knowing that nothing flatters Russians so
much as abuse of England and the English, began
to turn them into ridicule as no artists or judges
of music. I being young, foolish and impulsive,
broke in against all rules of etiquette, or even of
polite society: " Even if it were true, you should
not speak thus, as it is entirely to them you owe
your celebrity." An eloquent dead silence ensued,
and I have often since reflected on and appreciated
the extremely kind tolerance of the Grand-Duchess
Helena towards my youthful outburst.

Finally, I was called to her Majesty; gracious-
ness does not suffice to describe this amiable
Prussian's manner to me ; she made endless
inquiries concerning her many Berlin relatives,
went into extasies over a little trifle I sang —
" Mein Herz ist ein Reiter," which she laughingly
said she had often sung as a girl, and made me

St. Petersburg 93

sing over and over again, expressing her sorrow
to have been disabled from hearing me till so
late, but meant to make up for lost time. This
highly flattering speech embarrassed me not a
little, as I told her my health required my leaving
Russia at once. She laughed and replied, " Not
when the Empress desires you to remain, mon
enfant." When I got home, my mother, though
itw^as late in the evening, sent to Lord Clanricarde,
our ambassador and kind friend — as was his wife,
the handsome, distinguished daughter of the cele-
brated Canning — who came at once, accompanied
by the doctor of the embassy. Sir George ....
The latter declared to my mother that twice I
had regained my voice after violent throat attacks,
but he could not answer for it that any renewal of
such might not for ever deprive me of my voice.
On hearing this sentence, my mother begged Lord
Clanricarde, to obtain an audience of the Empress
and explain exactly what obliged her, in conscience,
to leave Russia without delay even against her
Majesty's flattering desire to the contrary. Later
I received through Lord Clanricarde a splendid
brooch in brilliants from the Empress.*

Next day, 6th April, together with a Queen's
courier and armed with a " podorodzna " — special
order for express horses, two or four as needed —
we hastened away, crossing many rivers, broad,
strong and deep, strongly frozen over. I much

* Stolen with almost all her jewels, later in Italy, travelling.

94 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

regretted, then and ever since, not going to Moscow,
and believe that had I, in Russia, led the only
possible life, indoors, walking up and down rooms
according to usage instead of English out-of-door
exercise, I might have borne the hideous climate
quite as well as other artists do.

A curious amusement there is to drive, always
in open sledge, to restaurants, big wooden houses
a few miles out of town, there refresh, see or join
in dancing, and home again through the snow.
Before re-entering, one's cavalier inspects one's face
and ears with a lighted lamp, and if signs of freezing
appear, he takes up some snow and with it rubs
the place — a precaution which prevents frost-bite
sores. I was informed that Russians have the
privilege of kissing their sleighing partner ; but not
being a Russian, this ceremony, thank God, was
foregone with me. Kissing among Russians is
frequent ; the men kiss the lady's hand — as in
Germany and Italy — but the lady, meanwhile,
kisses the man's forehead, in Russia. At Easter,
the kiss of peace, accompanied by the words,
" Christ is arisen," is obligatory ; even the moujik
may, nay must, so salute the Emperor. It is
said that a Jew once denied the kiss and the
affirmation to the Emperor Nicholas !

When the bridge across the wide Neva has to
be removed, a double row of trees, or poles, are
planted where the bridge stood, simply by making
holes in the frozen river and holding the tree in it ;

St. Petersburg 95

ice soon forms all around and upholds it all through
winter. The river was always half hidden by
congealed fog, and to see the sledges appear and
disappear across to the island and to the fortress
opposite reminded me of ghosts ; grey cloaks,
grey uniforms, grey sky, all was grey and
grimy. . . .

Nicholas' two daughters, Marie, dark-haired,
and Olga, blond, were as lovely in face, figure and
ways as to remind me, then and after, of fairy-
tale princesses. The year succeeding my winter
in Russia, both were brought from St. Petersburg,
avowedly to be married, so much so that Marie is
reported to have said, '' I never mean to marry
out of beloved Russia." She did marry Leuchten-
berg, who was made to reside in Russia, conse-
quently early to die there, he being one of the
unhappy consumptive sons of Beauharnais. Olga
became Queen of Wurtemberg.

Two years later, at Darmstadt, I had the honour
to be remembered by, and called to sing to, this
most amiable Empress, there to make acquaintance
with her son's afhanced bride, a lovely creature
whose yearning expression made me pity this
sweet young victim, as I considered her, condemned
to Russia. The Empress kindly reproached me
for having fled from St. Petersburg, but quite
forgave me, and fascinated me entirely. I was
called to Darmstadt on that occasion — from
Wiesbaden I think — by Prince Eugene in person ;

96 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

the man to whom the great Napoleon, at the battle
of Leipzig, addressed the words, " En avant,
futur roi de Prusse ! " Darmstadt was a pleasant
little German Court, reminding me somewhat of
Weimar ; family life seemed most agreeable, sans-
gene and enviable — who knows ?

Quitting St. Petersburg, we crossed over rivers
frozen hard, but as we neared the Vistula a thaw
had set in towards the south, and the ice bursting
at Warsaw caused a potent overflow, and near
Marienwerder we were brought to a standstill.
The passage over the ice on the Vistula was
impossible, but a sort of embankment was raised
quickly along which our carriage was dragged,
swaying and staggering as if it must break or
upset. It did not break, but it upset from the
snow-covered road on to the fields below ; horses,
coachmen, and our servant, Jelouka dragged us
back on to the road, and we arrived finally at
Marienwerder. The sight was striking ; blocks
of ice, the size of houses, had uprooted big trees,
upset houses and all which came in their way —
accidents not unfrequent in these dismal places :
" Et ces gens appellent ceci une patrie," came to
one's mind ! The proprietors of these lands, who
live, spread out, in big settlements assembled, as
usual on these occasions, at the caravanserai hotel
on the river border, and at once initiated a sort of
concert, where I was asked to sing, after which
dancing set in ; — a philosophical mode of getting

Singing Russian 97

pleasure out of evil, loss, misery, and disagreeables
endless.

Of Russian I learnt only sufficiently to sing
the fine hymn, "Bodgei tsaria chranui," composed
by the Emperor's aide-de-camp Lwoff, but so
rightly pronounced, through the kind instruction
and patience of Feodoreff, secretary at the Prussian
embassy, that I was repeatedly addressed in Rus-
sian, as it was insisted I must know the language.
But I had only a parrot's gift at it, and parrot
fashion I learnt also " Crassnui sarafan," " Solowei
moi," and many other lovely songs. Besides my
own great liking for national songs and hymns I
was, as an artist, desirous to pay a stranger's com-
pliment to the people of the countries I visited, and
to their reigning sovereigns by singing to them their
national songs in the original. Thus in Prussia I
sang ''God save the Queen" in German (probably
the original words to Lulli's minuet, adopted by
the French-loving Frederick the Great).*

* The writer's opinion as to the origin of our National Anthem
was shared by a number of people at the time she wrote ; historical
research has not yet made the matter quite clear, but it is now quite
incontestably established that neither a French nor a German source
can have been the original. Whether the tune was an adaptation
from an " Ayre" by Dr. John Bull, or an original composition of either
Henry Carey or James Oswald, there is documentary evidence to show
that it was in existence as we know it (and was considered old), in
1745 ; Lully's claim to its composition rests on the fictitious So uvemys
de la Marquise de Cre'qiii, and first occurs in a French collection in
1766. The Danes adopted it as their National Anthem (acknowledg-
ing the debt to England) in 1790, and the German translation of the
words " Heil dir im Siegerkranz," was adapted from the Danish
version by one B. G. Schumacher, in 1793.

H

98 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

Singing it once in Diisseldorf it was encored, as
mostly the case, but to my extreme surprise, the
Governor, Prince Frederick — cousin to my BerHn
princes — came to thank me, most seriously, for
what he considered an event of such political
importance, he had telegraphed it to Berlin, as a
victory ! The dislike to Prussia and its rule in
the Rhine provinces was notorious. How often
a mere lucky accident effects more than studied
efforts — all through life.

Returned to England, I took to singing again
in all the concerts and parties of the season, and
at the autumn festivals, these last being greatl}^
to my taste, in every respect. Sacred music can
never be heard so fittingly as inside cathedrals,
added to which the more or less beautiful neighbour-
hoods, the houses with gardens surrounding the
cathedrals, each and all hospitably thrown open
to the neighbours coming from near and far
animating the quaint dull towns — women whose
beauty is so eminently fitted for daylight, " break-
fast faces," as I heard a clever man call them,
in their best attire and free from the stiffness so
detrimental to the EngHsh among strangers — all
combined to render these country festivals perfec-
tion. I was much and kindly petted by every one,
and soon adopted into a sort of " one of them-
selves," many becoming real, and dear friends.
In one family, the W. J.'s, where I spent many
holidays, the father told me he had, at a hunt.

Milan Again 99

overheard some one say that I was, in reahty, one
of [his many daughters, and that I sang under a
feigned name much too pretty to be real ! Truth
is seldom believed, nonsense mostly.

In these festivals I heard Mrs. Knyvett,
Caradori- Allan, Vaughan, and Braham, incom-
parable though old ; but my great favourite was
Henry Phillips, and I was vexed when my enthu-
siasm was met by my father and others vaunting
Incledon and Bartleman's superiority over him.

My mother, to disguise my exceeding youth,
when I first appeared in public, made me wear
long skirts, instead of the short ones usual at that
age, and later was annoyed at the inevitable
consequence, people maintaining that I was much
older than my real years, and vowed she would
come provided with my baptismal register !

1840

We now returned to Milan for the second time,
for me to study under Micheroux, to whose judg-
ment it was left to decide when I was fit to make
my debut on the stage, how and where, and all
details. Almost every night I attended the opera
performances, and heard there Tadolini, Coletti,
Donzelli, and others.

The highest art carefully conceals the machinery
at the back of the canvas necessary to produce its

TOO Clara Novello's Reminiscences

grandest results, enhancing thus the effect on
those who witness its triumphs, making it appear
easy and spontaneous ; an exquisite refinement,
this, lost on the herd, the majority of which is
below comprehending it. This may account for
the success of mediocrities, often preferred, at
first and for a short time, to the superiors they
are pitted against and coupled with. Mediocrities
make the most of their toil by efforts and contor-
tions, enlisting compassion and compelling thank-
fulness in vulgar audiences. Taglioni had such
over-long arms that, to disguise this, she invented
graceful movements and attitudes with them,
quite a novelty in dancers at that time. Such
was her admirable grace and seeming ease that I,
when a child, tried in my nightgown, after seeing
her, to do her " pas," quite surprised at faihng
utterly ! Cerito, that pocket Venus, when coming
down to the footlights to acknowledge plaudits,
after marvellous /z^/^/s, would restrain her pantings,
to do away with any appearance of effort in what
she had done. Malibran, a ceaseless student,
amused herself, saying that her endless variety
was spontaneous, which to a certain extent,
however, was true, for according to whim or
impulse she would try experiments — in public as
well as in private. Pasta, that Tragic Muse,
imposing in grand beauty and sublime in simplicity,
conscientious in all things, studied in museums her
statuesque attitudes and draperies, and continued

Pasta I o I

to study "Norma," "Beatrice," and other operas
long after attaining success, the completest, in all
of them. Submissive to a vulgar mother to her
latest breath, she would come and whisper a few
words at the door of the darkened bedroom where
she passed long weeks nursing this mother ; over-
indulgent to her only child and forbearing to an
unfaithful husband, she, pure as snow . . . she
was a rare creature !

I had now in Milan a sort of epilogue to my
visit in Vienna in being called — also Adelaide
Kemble — to sing during the dreary banquet on
the occasion of the wretched Ferdinand's coronation
with the Iron Crown, as King of Lombardy ; a
more lugubrious farce I never witnessed in all my
life. I saw him also at La Scala, on the gala
night. What a sad sight ! the poor, big-headed,
half-witted emperor, his angelic martyr- wife at
his side, ever in terror, I was told, and ceaselessly
praying Heaven, during these trying ceremonials,
that her miserable husband, a victim, be spared one
of his epileptic fits. Prince Metternich, the real
sovereign, gave on this occasion a grand reception
and concert, in which sang Mme. Pasta, Prince
Belgiojoso — a splendid tenor and real artist —
and my humble self. The prince, clever in paying
rare compliments, as in other ways, said aloud,
" Were I not minister and otherwise busy, I
would choose to be an impresario with such artists
for my troupe." A few days later I received

I02 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

from the princess a pretty bracelet with cameos,
which I put on at once, as we were going out to
see some illuminations. Alas ! on returning home
it was gone ! So I had to write my thanks for
what I no longer possessed, and a souvenir, too,
from such people and of such a soiree !

From Mme. Pasta's balcony I witnessed the
entrance of the troops. The smart red uniforms
of the Hungarians were ridiculed as " tomatoes " ;
certainly, even to my ignorant youth, the difference
from the Italian troops was striking ; splendid
men, soberly dressed, eyes downcast and oppressed
with shame, passing amid dead, significant silence ;
I was awed, so eloquent it was ; tears were in the
eyes of the women and men around me.

This whole episode was a strange brilliant
interlude in my quiet student life.

Liszt was at this time in Milan ; a poseur by
nature, he was almost driven to eccentricities by
the frenzies of women over him, some of whom
absolutely pursued him, nay, ran him down. At
Vienna, as elsewhere, when he broke the strings
of the piano during concerts, the women rushed
on to the platform to seize them and have bracelets
made of them ; and when he left Vienna, fifteen
or twenty carriagefuls of these cracked creatures
pursued him as far as the first station where change
of post-horses took place.

He had offended the Milanese by some news-
paper article, for he wrote pungently as he mostly

Debut in Opera 103

spoke, therefore, when about to give a concert,
no singer dared take part in it. Hearing that I
was in Milan, studying, he called one day and
obtained leave from my mother, whom he had
known, that I should sing at his concert. There
I saw these scrambles for strings broken purposely
and the several pianos standing ready should the
breakages cripple unserviceably the piano played
on ! Liszt was, to me, most good-natured ; to
give me courage to have a tooth out, one day, he
actually complied with my flattery and played
Weber's " Concertstiick " — my great favourite —
as no one else ever did or could play it. Eccentric
by system, he dined once at our simple table, and
coming so late that he was no longer expected,
found us eating gooseberry-pie ; this sour sweet
he insisted on eating together with the fish, the
roast meat, etc., etc. Afterwards he played tricks,
among others playing on the piano while he turned
his back on the instrument ; a marvellous feat,
though only a trick.

After seven or eight months' study in Milan,
Micheroux made an engagement for me in Padua
— my first appearance on the stage — in " Semira-
mide," so out of date as to be quite an exciting
novelty ; Marietta Brambilla was my contralto ;
our duett was applauded, between each phrase,
by claps sharp as the report of a cannon — not to
prevent the next phrase being heard — and made
quite an epoch among the students.

I04 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

From Padua L went to Bologna, and there
sang with Coletti and Moriani " Lucrezia Borgia,"
at the Communale ; Moriani teaching me, with
infinite pains and precision, the death-scene, as he
had just learnt and executed it in Vienna, with
Carolina Unger, which scene I, in my turn, taught
to and executed with Ivanoff, the following
Carnival in Genoa, at the Carlo Felice. Ivanoff
was Rossini's great protege, so he felt a sort of
artistic relationship to me, whom Rossini so kindly
helped with counsel and musical hints, writing
cadences for me, etc. He, Rossini, once said,
** Consider me a sort of uncle, or other loved
relative, whenever you need information and help,"
and acted on this as well as saying so ; many a
" scrittura " he helped me so to word as to avoid
trouble, especially after my falling into a trap
which cost me dear, but in its results proved my
fate ; of which more hereafter.

During one of these journeys a strange incident
happened which in fiction would be thought
unnatural ; travelling by vetturino and while
supping in a small inn, my mother began telling
me of the infamous lawsuit George IV. brought
against his wife, the unhappy Princess of Brunswick
he wished to divorce, and of the nickname, " non
mi ricordos," given to the many Italian witnesses
who too often - answered " non mi ricordo ! "
when unable to deny what the princess's legal
defenders asked of them in her favour. My mother

Genoa 105

could not remember the name of the courier,
Cav. Bergami, and was searching for it in her
memory, when suddenly the name was supplied,
in English, by the little old waiter, who added,
" I was in the Queen's service ! " Great was our
consternation at having been understood by a poor
old waiter in this small out-of-the-way place —
whose name I forget — and amazing the coincidence
of such an unusual subject being the theme of
the two only travellers that night in the big,
ill-lighted dining-room. What a surprise to the
old man also to have his own past life thus
unexpectedly brought up before him — like a
ghost !

Genoa delighted me ! this, indeed, was Italy !
the marble palaces, the dazzling brilliance and
brightness of everj^thing. The steepness of the
town produced funny sights ; looking out of my
window the first morning and hearing church
bells, I looked about for these and discovered the
belfry far below me — and looking above me I saw
a lady watering plants in her garden ! The world
upside down it seemed to me !

After Padua, my mother having seen me
successfully launched in my career, left for England,
my elder sister Emma replacing her near me,
besides an elderly sort of " gouvernante," a
Venetian, plus a man, who left his gondola to
become cook and manservant to us. For a time
all went well, but I soon discovered that Lorenzo

io6 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

was dishonest and a drunkard, and he, setting
fire to the curtains one evening, was summarily
dismissed and replaced by the husband of Rossini's
" gouvernante," a queer goose faithful as a dog,
but with habits which caused me some annoyance,
such as emptying my bath out of the window,
ridding himself in the same way of all refuse from
the kitchen, with consequent mulcts to be paid,
excuses tendered, etc. The Signora Caterina was
an habitual player in the lottery and much too
occupied with numbers, dreams, and the like to
be of any use, and finally she became so entirely
imbecile as to prove dangerous as well as useless ;
she, one day, mixed up my few medicinal
powders all together — from tidiness ! as she after-
wards explained — causing me thus to administer
to my sister a dose chiefly of alum instead of
soda ! — so from Genoa I despatched her to her
native lagoons.

1842

When the Carnival season in Genoa was over,
Emma and I returned to Milan, where I had the
honour and enviable distinction of being chosen
by Rossini to sing his ** Stabat Mater " in Bologna,
the following May, together with Ivanoff, Belgio-
joso, brother to the tenor, and Degli Antoni,
contralto.

Contracts 107

This composition was quite a musical event ;
all the artists young and old crowded to see and
know it, for Milan was then, as it is now, the
" piazza," so-called, where those desiring engage-
ments meet with the impresarios, or agents, in
search of pre}' — alias artists ! At Ricordi's the
" Stabat " was constantly read, tried, admired,
wondered at — Rossini had, through it, a sort of
resurrection, having died out of knowledge, partly
for want of capable singers, partly also from rage
for novelty and for screams in lieu of singing ;
the same fashion which had begun in Bellini's
and Donizetti's youth, and which Pasta, Rubini
and Co., had succeeded in deferring for some years.

I was about to sign a contract for Turin, to
sing in the spring at Victor Emanuel's wedding-
fetes, when S. L. appearing, stepped in and made
a gratis contract — though ostensibly for a good
sum ; a usual feint and " reclame," useful only to
those for whom art and the stage are only masks
and occasions to be seen and noticed for other
ends. I signed, instead, a contract for Modena,
wedding-fetes of the hated duke's eldest son with
Ildegonde of Bavaria, where I sang " Belisario " and
"Marino Faliero " with Fornasari. Here I first
heard Italian politics talked of, was told of
Menotti's conspiracy, flight, and capture through
returning for his dog, who howled at some acci-
dent — and many other highly interesting episodes,
told by ej'C-witnesses under their breaths.

io8 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

The " Stabat Mater," given in Bologna as hom-
mage to dear Rossini, was so engrossing an event that
musicians all joined in it enthusiastically. Donizetti
conducted, and endless professors, male and female,
formed the chorus, one being Alboni, another
Ronzi, etc., etc.

Rossini's own small habitation could not house
us, his guests, so we, Donizetti, Ivanoff, Belgiojoso,
my sister Emma and myself, had rooms to sleep
in in an hotel near by, all dining at Rossini's
table. Afterwards Rossini used to rehearse us,
the quartett especially, " Quando corpus," which
soon went as smoothly as an accordion, so that I
would say to Rossini, " If you rehearse us because
you enjoy hearing it, all right, but don't say it
can be improved ! " And when came the turn of
the quartett " Sancta Mater," Belgiojoso's regular
little joke was to alter the phrase, *' Virgo Virgi-
num preclara " into " Virgo Virginum Miss Clara,"
looking at me ! What anecdotes of former times
between Rossini and Donizetti — " un vrai gamin "
always, to his death ! What interesting dis-
cussions between the two, comparing their several
" libretti " for operas, Donizetti, in these, so
infinitely more fortunate than Rossini, and how
the best " libretti " often inspired the least suc-
cessful, or good operas !

The large room in the Archiginnasio, where
" Stabat " was performed, proved so inadequate
that rows of paid places filled the piazza below.

Rossini's " Stabat Mater." 109

between the portico and the cathedral of St.
Petronio — precisely where the cathedral would
have extended had Rome not forbidden its com-
pletion for fear it should outdo St. Peter's in size !
For three nights these performances were repeated,
with ever increasing delight to all engaged, per-
formers and listeners, and with nightly ovations
to the great maestro. After the third night we
went to supper to a friend's house, where crowds
came beneath the windows to hail Rossini re-
peatedly, and where, within, comic songs and
merriment kept us all late.

In remembrance, Rossini gave to each of the four
principal performers a bound copy of the " Stabat," and
to Clara Novello, particularly, a gold-stoppered scent-
bottle.

From Bologna Donizetti hastened to Vienna,
there to give his latest opera, " Linda di Cha-
mounix," with Tadolini, Brambilla and Ronconi.

As I never omitted hearing and seeing cele-
brated artists when I could, as an advantageous
lesson, besides being a great pleasure, my sister
and I joined a party going to Modena, to hear
Frezzolini — then at the height of her fame, and
just married to Paggi, an insignificant tenor and
worse actor — and Giorgio Ronconi. Frezzolini
was tall and considered handsome, too angular in
face, form and attitudes to please me, she became
an immense favourite in Italy, Paris, and St.

no Clara Novello's Reminiscences

Petersburg. Giorgio Ronconi was one of the
most varied and complete artists I ever saw or
heard as singer and actor, tragic, dramatic, and
comic ; small and plain in person, deficient in
voice, and often out of tune, notwithstanding all
these drawbacks, he for years enraptured the
public, in and out of Italy ; the nobility of his
walk and deportment was such as to make him
appear tall.

It was in Bologna, during the performance of the
" Stabat ", that Clara Novello's future husband. Count
Gigliucci, first heard her, without however seeing her.
When leaving Fermo for a pleasure tour which included
Bologna, he was begged to hear Clara Novello and judge
if it would be desirable to engage her for the season of
the fair, 15th August to 15th September, to be especially
brilliant that year, in honour of the re-opening of the
theatre, repaired and restored. On arriving in Bologna
he found that not a single seat was to be had, but after
much labour he obtained, by favour, a place in the
orchestra — curiously enough, given up to him by Clara's
own sister — where he could hear but not see the singers.
His report was favourable and the " scrittura " was
offered to her.

I was to have returned to Padua to sing during
the summer, but some intrigue, which I now forget,
broke my contract at the last moment, and by
Rossini's advice I accepted the offer to sing at
Fermo, hitherto not a " teatro di cartello," but
on this occasion first raised to this rank. Here I

Bust of Clara Novello.

Bv Ptttiinati.

A Trap 1 1 1

sang Pacini's " Saffo " — lately written and in quite
a new style, compared with his usual popular
operas — and " Beatrice di Tenda." After Fermo
I was to have proceeded to Naples for the autumn
season, but Fate willed otherwise.

From Rome I had had proposals to sing at the
Apollo, in the ensuing Carnival, and a certain
Marchese L. trapped my inexperience into a
written " compromesso " which I intended as a
mere note to himself ; my success in Genoa having
caused the impresario there to offer me, mean-
while, a " scrittura " for the ensuing Carnival, I
accepted and signed this. But once in Fermo in
the Papal States, the arbitrary Roman Government
having me in its power, gave order to detain me,
against all justice — as usual with Papal rule —
until Carnival, when I was to sing in Rome whether
I would or not. I wished to resist, but was
persuaded by kind experienced friends not to
risk imprisonment — with which I was explicitly
menaced — so I gave in, Marchese Passari being
surety for me that I would not give them the
slip. I applied for help to our Foreign Office,
and after endless discussions a droll sort of Solo-
mon's-] udgment-like compromise was come to
between the belligerent impresarios of Rome and
Genoa, dividing me between them during the
Carnival ; for I insisted that having promised to
sing in Genoa I must and would keep my word,
and on that condition alone consented to sing

112 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

at all in Rome, where only a nasty trick had
entrapped me.

On this, as on most other occasions during these
years, Clara Novello took counsel with Rossini. The
following letter, one of many written on the same subject,
testifies to the active and truly fatherly interest which
the great composer took in the young artist.

Tyanslation.

Dearest Clara,

Magotti writes me that the " Impresa " in
Naples has engaged the Loewe for the two autumn months,
consequently we must think no more about this.

The Director of the Police, here, informs me he has
orders from Rome not to give you a passport for leaving
Italy, should you be coming here ; do your best to obtain
permission for Bologna, saying that you will be still in
the Papal States ; once here we will manage about the
rest. In default write to your ambassador in Rome, and
tell him that, pending judgment, the utmost that can be
demanded of you is a guarantee. I will see Giovinardi
(la^\yer) and ask him if it would not be the proper thing
to lay a protest against Jacovacci (Roman impresario).
Do not let these things distress you, be of good cheer,
because everything rights itself in this world. Warm
remembrances to your mother and sister,

Yr. affte.,

G. Rossini.

I was kept meanwhile in Fermo, one of my
sisters remaining with me. Fermo, like all the
so-called towns in the Marche, is perched on the
top of a hill, the cathedral on the highest point,
houses all round sloping down the hill. From my
window I have counted upwards of fifty such

Fermo 113

little towns, topping innumerable hills — these
dotted with endless farmhouses — and rising to the
magnificent chain of the Apennines, Tocco range,
Gran Sasso d' Italia, Ascoli range, Vettore, Sibilla,
as far as the Ancona rock, lying on the sea like a
couchant monster ; waves of hills and valleys,
the mist, when l3dng in these, enabling one to
count at least fourteen in number, between Fermo
and the highest of these grand mountains, of
exquisite outhnes.

It was during these months of unjust " durance
vile " that I knew and loved my future husband,
and we agreed he should go to London in spring
and ask my hand of my parents ; he foregoing,
on my account, to visit Rome that winter, as
usual ; thus we only met for an hour, in Genoa,
next spring, when he passed through from Naples
to Milan.

My enforced stay in Fermo was rendered very
agreeable by the kindness of the Marchesa Passari,
an exceptional woman, in beauty as in brilliant intel-
lectual gifts, who treated me like a daughter. She
received every evening, after a drive and stopping at
the " Caffe " for ices and chat, as did most ladies at
that time, no morning visits troubling people then,
neither did the sociable evenings require prepara-
tions in the way of toilettes or extra illuminations.
During the opera, or " fair," season the houses
were filled with guests, who all met daily in the
" Piazza," or wherever the fair was held, to make

I

114 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

needful purchases or succumb to temptations.
Dances and receptions filled the off evenings, to
which those whose means prevented the giving
of such were made as welcome as all the rest ;
many a marriage was the result of this intercourse
between the neighbouring towns. Each small
town lived its own life, enlivened by the novelties
introduced by those who could afford to travel
or to spend a few months in Rome, Naples, or
Milan.

In Rome I sang "I Puritani" with Moriani, and
as I sang without the slightest effort, I was at
first accused of not choosing to put forth my full
powers ; very soon, however, I became quite a
favourite both on the stage and in society, where
every one kindly vied with each other in petting
me.

In the " Countess of Granville's Letters," Vol. II., page
349, she writes : " . . . heard Clara Novello last night
(January 19th, 1842) at the opera, in the ' Puritani.'
Nothing ever equalled the furor of applause, wreaths,
nosegays. . . . She was dragged home in a car and
surrounded by people with torches,"

How well I remember still the grand assembly
in Palazzo Borghese on the 6th of January, 1843,
on which night it was customary for a sort of
show to be made of family jewels on each princess.
DazzHng indeed was the sight, with a large number
of cardinals among the guests, wearing splendid

Rome 1 1 5

laces over roseate scarlet silk training robes and
gorgeous jewelled crosses suspended from gold
chains on fronts— not to say stomachs — mostly
very big !

I was to sing gratis, as a favour — whether
from me, at that moment the public's favourite,
or conferred on me, I will not decide ! The French
princess-mother, with her eldest son Prince Mar-
cantoni, then a most interesting widower of the
lately dead Princess Guendolen Talbot, received
me in the antechamber, and took me in the private
room of Donna Agnese, then the only child of the
widowed prince. There I was made to partake
of a delicious consomme — as I had just left the
opera-house, where I had sung " Puritani " — both
my hosts standing by me ; she, coquettish still in
wearing no gloves to show her exquisite small
hands covered with splendid rings. After the
music dancing followed, of which I was ever
excessively fond, as a girl.

Monsignor then "Governatore " of Rome,

affected to smile graciously at my outspoken
opinion regarding the way his government had
cheated me of a lucrative engagement in Naples,
by detaining me in Fermo pending the decision
about Genoa — and placed his box at my disposal
to hear " Lucia." Splendidly acted and even
sung by Moriani, in his dramatic fashion, it left
me cold who remembered Rubini in the same part,
his divine voice, tears a component part of his

ii6 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

liquid notes, singing as if to himself, in a far
away reverie, pianissimo, the entire first part of the
soliloquy in the third act — I felt entranced almost
to fainting away in extasy ! In art as in beauties
of nature, absolute perfection strikes one dumb,
utterly.

During this half-Carnival season I often saw
Adelaide Ristori at the Teatro Metastasio ; already
the idol of the public, her acting of Goldoni's
" Locandiera " can never be equalled for graceful
coquetry, now out of date and a forgotten art,
on the stage — in life — reduced to cocottery ! For
her benefit she surprised her admirers by acting
tragedy, in Voltaire's " Zaire." This was thought,
then, an ambitious mistake, but proved successful ;
lovely in face and figure, she also possessed a
noble grace of manner quite irresistible. Not long
after she married the Marchese Capranica del
Grillo, and it was only many years later, in
London, that I made her personal acquaintance,
which ripened into lasting friendship, based on
my side on esteem added to admiration, her only
daughter, Bianca, whom I surnamed '' Edelweiss,"
being quite as lovely and fascinating though of a
different type.

Only several years later was I able, at last, to
see the renowned Rachel, not in tragedy the first
time, but in Augier's charming piece, " Diane,"
written for her. Having always heard that she
was ugly, my first surprise was admiration for

Rachel 117

her person ; of her might exactly apply the words :
" Sa physionomie empechait de voir sa figure."
But in whatever I afterwards heard her, in
" Adrienne Lecouvreur," " Les Horaces," or
whatever else it might be, my intense admiration
left me no powers to criticize. What a voice !
what dignity ! what " retenue ! " never stooping
to rave or over-gesticulate — a look — a tone — ■
sufficed to subdue, to crush, to enthral ! What
marvellous changes of intonation in such phrases
as, " Je saurai percer le coeur . . . que je n'ai
su toucher!" fury, love, despair — in two
words !

What art treats of varied kinds were those,
then, on the French stage, degraded nowadays
into a monotonous sequence of loathsome scenes
and moral stench, impossible to witness or submit
to, and debasing art by teaching that vice and
delinquents only can interest.

My mornings, in Rome, were spent mostly in
the galleries and museums, usually escorted by
dear old Marchese Giuseppe Azzolino, best of
cicerones, to whom my friend Marchesa Passari,
in Fermo, had given me letters ; every evening
before going to the theatre he used to come —
and many other kind friends also — to have coffee,
tell us the news, and take orders, as he called it,
for next day. On off nights, when I received, he
was useful and delightful, telling me the histories
of all the people present, so that I became

1 1 8 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

intimately acquainted with what rendered them
so many personages in romances.

One day it was Campana who kindly showed
and explained to me the Etruscan tombs in his
lovely villa near S. Giovanni Laterano, now built
over and destroyed, alas ! Another day Gennarelli
took me all over the Etruscan museum in the
Vatican, lately added and entirely arranged by
him, pointing out to me what most to notice and
to admire in those galleries, which would require
a lifetime, however, dedicated only to them, to
see them well. Then Cardinal Tosti, whose hobby
was San Michele, invited me to go and visit it,
and when there, begged me choose, in remembrance,
something made in that laboratory, so I chose
some cloth the same as what the cardinal's cloaks
are made of, but dyed blue, of which I made
tippets for Emma and myself to travel in, and
called them " cardinals." With Avvocato Plana,
then in Rome, friend of Rossini, I went to see,
in Palazzo Bonaparte, some lovely things on sale,
left by Cardinal Fesch, uncle to the great Napoleon,
among them some exquisite Alencon trimmings,
which I could have bought and did not, and have
regretted ever since !

In February I left Rome for Genoa, and after
the Carnival season there, I went to London,
where, at Drury Lane, I sang Pacini's " Saffo,"
translated, under Macready's management. What
a stilted conceit-concrete was he ! though a clever

Marriage 119

imitation of the Kemble school. " Acis and
Galatea " followed, then the festivals in autumn,
and on November 22nd I married and quitted
public life — for ever ! as I believed.

We left for the Continent, and at Marseilles
stayed some weeks, where kind merchant-friends
invited us to the opera and to picnics in the
environs. My husband wished to visit Algiers,
delighting in the sea, while I so dreaded it that he
relinquished the journey to please me, which I
have since regretted. We went to Toulon which,
after Portsmouth arsenal, seemed to me but a
very poor affair ! On returning to Marseilles we
found that our rooms — paid for, though vacant,
to avoid changes — were occupied ; but my hus-
band's remonstrances ceased as if by magic on
learning that their occupant was no one less than
Austria's political martyr, Confalonieri, just re-
leased from dungeon. I began then to learn the
glorious deeds of such men, and looked with
reverence for a glimpse of this one from our
windows to his, across the courtyard.

We shipped along the coast to Naples, and
stayed there some months. We had rooms at the
Hotel de Rome, opening on to a splendid terrace
on the sea, so had all the delight without the
terrible movement of shipboard — and I passed
endless hours there. The mornings my husband
spent in expensive and vain spurring on of his
lawyer in a suit for redress of flagrant injustice

I20 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

committed against his property across the Tronto
border, in the NeapoHtan states, and I meanwhile
enjoyed daily visits of long hours to the inex-
haustible museum, where the " custode " learnt
to dread my inquiring spirit and requests for a
sight of out-of-the-way treasures, which he was
seldom troubled to bring forth except by
myself.

One evening we went to a gala performance
at San Carlo (Anna Bishop singing) illuminated
■' a giorno," and the Court in full Court dresses.
This consisted, for the ladies, in crimson velvet
trimmed with gold, making them look like so
many chorus singers !

The King I often saw, driving himself, pig-like
in face and figure, like his cousin Isabella of Spain,
and the Queen Christina of Spain, magnificently
handsome sister of the hideous Duchesse de Berry,
both equally dissolute in conduct. The mother
of these, a Spaniard, wore a black wig and still
desired a young husband ; to prevent scandals a
very handsome one was provided, named Del B.
I often saw him, alone, driving splendid horses,
and saw her also, low-necked, at the opera-house.
What wonder that both her daughters and her
unhappy grand-daughter, Isabella, were . . . what
they were !

We made an excursion to Monte Cassino, twin
of Molk convent on the Danube ; but it proved a
failure, as women are not admitted without a

Housekeeping 121

permit, which our banker knew, but had stupidly
forgotten to provide us with, or even mention.

The end of April, seeing my husband's efforts
with the lawyer quite vain, we decided to leave
Naples for Fermo ; a fine drive across the Apen-
nines and vile hostelries everywhere took us to
San Benedetto del Tronto, where home estates
began ; thence to Fermo, really our home, and
its duties.

My girlish axiom : marriage would be happy
if one could begin by the second year ! proved a
ver}^ inspiration or prediction ; on both sides
relatives disliked our marriage. Seven nuns were
among my nearest new relatives, and naturally to
these a theatrical artist could only be an imp of
Satan ! *' Tridui " * were offered by them to
prevent our union — in vain ! Little by little,
however, these ladies grew actually quite fond of
me, and my family forgave us.

I set to to prove to my husband that opposite
though m\' life had been hitherto, love would
teach me to become a " helpmate " to him — that
highest title — and I applied myself regularly to
learn the arduous duties of housewifery in these
parts ; at first with the help of the " fattore," or
baihff, but after one month's following him and
his system implicitly, by myself, altering some of
his ways and not a few of the locks ! I set up a
book marking on one side the large and regular

* Three days' prayer.

122 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

expenses, and on the other side the so-called odds
and ends, mostly small and never calculated,
resulting, however, at each month's end in both
totals being nearly equal ! — a discovery worth
making. Postage in those days was no incon-
siderable item, though post was so dismally slow,
and oh ! no telegraph — best of all inventions,
annulling distance and the separation of hearts
and minds. Next best, though so humble, come
matches ; before these how difficult to obtain
light, in sickness and in sudden emergencies so
costly and uncertain, now cheap and reliable.

Life in these little towns was far more sociable
and animated in those days than it is now, for the
difficulties and lengthiness in the way of travelling
kept most people in their own homes. Besides
the annual " fair," lasting one month. Carnival
brought again a round of gaiety, the theatre re-
opened not only for operas but for " veglioni " ;
to these, presided over by a master of ceremonies,
flocked the whole of the society to dance, and the
lower classes were admitted also, if respectably
dressed and also masked, to dance like the rest
and see the gentlefolk in all their jewels and fine
clothes. A far sounder " socialism," this, than
what goes by that name nowadays.

Clara Novello was noted all her life for exceeding
frankness of speech and uncompromisingly setting her
face against people or things she disapproved of. One
carnival evening, in these days, a lady, masked, entered

Home Life 123

her box at the theatre ; a great lace-fancier, Clara
admired some costly lace on the lady's dress, when the
latter replied, "It may well be beautiful ; I bought it
of a maid once in Casa Gighucci." " In that case,
mascherina," said Clara, " I beg you will leave my box ;
I don't care for people who buy stolen goods ! " The
mask permitted the lady's identity to be officially con-
cealed, but Clara had penetrated the disguise and was
quite aware who it was to whom she had given the lesson.
But her frankness was ever direct, and she never said of
any one what she would not say to him or her.

I cannot deny I felt lonely sometimes, of an
evening quite alone, working at clothes for an
expected baby, half envying the peals of laughter
from the kitchen far below, while my husband,
according to custom, was at the " caffe," till ten,
discussing politics, etc., with his men-friends, after
a day's work with his peasants and men of business,
steadily setting to rights what years of neglect had
tangled in his property.

Count Gigliucci was an only son, orphan from the
age of nineteen months, and brought up by his paternal
grandmother and his uncle, Mgr. Gigliucci, who died soon
after his elder brother. During this long minority the
property was managed and mismanaged by his tutor, a
learned priest but incapable of such work, which needed
instead very able hands, to repair the damage it had
suffered, together with most other property all over Italy,
during that colossal upheaval, the French Revolution,
when Count Gigliucci's grandfather, then head of the
family, was taken as hostage by the French and kept for

124 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

a time in the fortress of Ancona. To enable the young
proprietor to manage his own estates he, with his grand-
mother's full consent, obtained a sovereign decree de-
claring him of age before he was twenty — and soon after
his grandmother died, at past ninety. His only sister
was in a convent, founded some centuries before by her
family, of which she became subsequently Superior,
remaining so till her death. Thus on her marriage Clara
Novello found herself sole mistress in her new home ; no
small boon in times when a bride, entering her husband's
house, and finding there his parents, uncles, brothers,
sisters, and endless relatives, became only one of many
daughters, without power to say a word, even in the
management of her own babies ! Clara would say.
playfully, that to marry into such families was like entering
a Noah's Ark !

I generally accompanied my husband on his
rounds of inspection to the farms,* and soon
knew our peasants by name, men, women, and
children, which greatly pleased them. The dis-
cussions, too, between master and " fattore "
interested me — how different was everything to
England and English systems ! Once, coming
across a particularly arid spot, the question was.
What was to be done as nothing would grow on
it ? " Nothing but to bring sheep," decided the
fattore. I couldn't help asking if sheep, in Italy,
studied geology ?

For two years I never had a piano, purposely
to convince my husband that I never regretted

* These lie some miles away from Fermo.

Dragonetti's Legacy 125

my public life, as " d d good-natured friends "

kept constantly assuring him that I should ; but
not to neglect my singing entirely I exercised my
voice often when alone. When, however, old
Dragonetti died and left me a hundred pounds, I
begged my father to purchase with this sum a
square Broadwood piano, and when it came it
proved a source of great pleasure, and subsequently
of advantage also.

The celebrated double-bass player, Dragonetti, was a
great friend of Vincent Novello, who often acted as inter-
preter to him, Dragonetti never having leamt to speak
Italian. He gave V. Novello a lock of his friend Beet-
hoven's hair, and a letter of Paganini, in which the great
artist sends messages to the " divino Maestro Novello."

Another way of courting my husband was by
constraining myself to learn and take interest in
politics, sufficiently at least to know what he
alluded to in conversing with me. In childhood
I had heard English politics talked about by my
father, Charles Cowden Clarke, and most men who
visited in our house ; we little ones never being
allowed to speak a word, were permitted on a sign
to " run away " from table, and long after child-
hood I continued to do the same to avoid what I
felt no interest in, nor could hope to remedy, and
the discussions often rising to disputes, besides
the arguments being distressing and tedious, I
learnt to detest the very name of politics. But

126 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

Italian politics, about the years '45 and '49, were
a very different thing, entered one's life whether
liked or disliked, so influenced everything that one
was obliged to attend to them, and I soon saw
that my husband cared and lived for nothing so
much. So I read daily four or five newspapers,
all small and short, and soon heated myself up to
intensest feelings which have lasted all our lives
and influenced all our decisions.

1848

Gregory XVI. dying, Pius IX. was elected ;
my husband was a personal friend of his nephew.
Count Luigi Mastai, who came to Fermo and
stayed in our house. My husband, though young,
was quite a leading man in Fermo, head of the
civic guard, instituted by Pius IX., and one of
the foremost among the municipal and provincial
councillors, he was called upon, on all occasions,
to decide even where older men held nominal
command.

One morning we were roused by the news
that Padre Gavazzi had arrived suddenly and was
haranguing the people in the piazza, assembling
volunteers to follow him as soldiers ; my husband
donned his uniform and ran to give orders ; I
followed to hear the harangue. Padre Gavazzi,
splendidly picturesque, standing on a table in

Politics 127

black cassock with large cross in colours sewn on
the left side, his sonorous voice, powerful build,
vigorous in words and noble in gestures, was a
sight so exciting that I and three other lady
friends drove after him to Porto di Fermo (now
called Porto San Giorgio) to hear him a second
time there, where he had gone to see and say adieu
to friends, many of whom at once volunteered
and departed with him to join Garibaldi.

In autumn w^e went to stay in a small ** casino "
we were building just across the river Tronto, on
Neapolitan ground, and whilst there a cousin from
Ancona brought the horrible news of Pellegrino
Rossi's assassination by the ** sinistra " or reds ;
sinisters, as I call them, who have been Italy's
bane from the beginning till now, verifying over
again Milton's words, " Licence they mean when
liberty they cry ! "

My husband had been elected member for
Fermo,* and on this terrible news decided that
his proper place was in Rome, the scene of
danger ; at once we hurried there, sooner than
had been intended.

The first year of Pius IX. 's reign had begun
by incredulous joy at the signs he gave of real
liberal sentiments, and the joy soon rose to a very
delirium of boundless hopes. During these first
bright, hopeful months, nightly were the scenes
at the theatre of frenzied applause when words

* In the first constitutional Parliament called by Pius IX.

128 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

recurred allusive to the events and aspirations of
the times ; the performance would be interrupted
for some minutes, handkerchiefs and scarfs waved
from all the boxes, and finally all knotted together,
between the upper and lower tiers forming quite
a network which joined the entire audience in
sign of Unity ! Some days joyful news of some
sort, spreading from the " caffe," would cause a
procession, ever increasing, with flags improvised,
to stop below windows, until the inmates of the
houses appeared there, hurrahing and waving
answering flags — tricolored, of course, that symbol
of liberty, so significant, so long sighed for in vain !

Horses being needed for the army and funds
low, Pius IX. made a patriotic appeal inviting
those who possessed horses to send them ; my
husband was the first,* in the Papal States, to
answer this appeal, and sent the one pair we could
afford to keep, we remaining, thenceforth, gladly
on foot.

But all this joy, progress and liberty alarmed
the Jesuits, and they showed their contrariety so
openly that they were accused by the people of
intending to poison the Pope at a dinner given
him in the Jesuits' college; assembling below, under
the windows, they insisted on his coming on to the
balcony to reassure them. The assassination of
Pellegrino Rossi followed not long after, and blacks

* The Minister Gualterio, in a public proclamation, recognized
this fact.

Venice 129

and reds joined forces against liberty, their means
to their ends identical, terrorising to tyrannise —
their combined colours the Devil's own livery !

My mother, to whom I had announced our
going to Rome, adding, ** Why not come there,
also, and see us all ? " never hoping she would
accept, came to Rome and never left Italy again,
which doubtless prolonged her life some five years ;
Providence often uses humble means to its ends.
Only once, since my marriage two years before,
had my parents and some members of my family
come to Italy, making a trip to Venice, where they
asked us to join them. This news had upset me
with urgent longings, and my indulgent half had
consented at once, but a baby was expected
imminently, when a woman becomes a " Temple
(of the Holy Ghost)," and should sacrifice every-
thing to avoid risk. Venice, on maps, and now-
adays, is easily reached from Fermo ; not so then,
and I therefore renounced undertaking the journey.
But it cost my nerves not a little, disabling me
even from reading — my eternal solace — and to
calm them I set to on a long monotonous piece of
needlework, one of women's few but great and
real privileges. Men, also, at that time used to
employ their leisure in various manual labours,
highly useful to them, morally and physically.
My husband was an able worker in wood, metal
and leather ; was turner and bookbinder, and
knew all the technical peculiarities of these arts,

K

130 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

to the surprise and admiration of the professional
craftsmen, a circumstance which contributed to
render him popular, esteemed and beloved at
home and abroad. He took kindly to gardening,
and was a born architect ; as a boy he was denied
the necessary implements, compasses, etc., as it
was feared these would distract him from law-
studies, considered more suitable to a nobleman
and a proprietor ! as if to cultivate his natural
gifts would not have been a better relaxation than
idleness ! — ever dangerous to youth ; he eluded
their mistaken vigilance, however, and manu-
factured for himself his own implements, and most
useful through life were these gifts to him and to
those around him.

Travelling in Italy was at that time hemmed in by
difficulties of all kinds, moral as well as material ; the
mere fact of desiring to leave home and to travel created
suspicion in the authorities. The Novello family, ever
after, called this the Nous-sommes-sept journey on account
of the innumerable times they gave that reply, the first
in the lengthy interrogatories they were subjected to in
the police offices they were summoned to there to account
for themselves, their profession, their motives for travelling,
etc., etc. The answer given that they were seven artists,
travelling for pleasure, was entirely unconvincing, and in
Milan an agent was told off to follow them wherever they
went, and to remain in the hotel hall when they were
indoors. Doubtless it was owing to their being British
subjects that they were not more molested ; as it was,.

Anxious Times 131

" our spy " was rather a source of amusement to the
Novellos, who to tease him would sally out all together,
but suddenly all separate, leaving him distracted in
indecision which conspirator it most behoved him to
follow.

Events began to thicken rapidly. The recall
of the Neapolitan troops under Pepe roused
indignation and disgust ; as usual the foxes
incited the geese — alias mob — to make some
demonstration which would only have served as
the desired signal for sacking Fermo. My hus-
band was able, just in time, to prevail against
this insanity. My maids, like others, in agonies of
fright, begged they might hide in cellar or cock-
loft — as if to do so could have helped them had
such horrors once begun. The troops, in silence,
passed through Porto di Fermo, where they had
previously been covered by flowers and feted in
all ways, when going north to fight the Austrian
troops entered to keep order and protect property,
under which fair names endless acts of arbitrary
tyranny and theft were committed. Soon com-
menced, on all sides, the imprisonment of those
patriots known to disapprove and deplore Italy's
relapse to slavery ; I trembled each time my hus-
band left home for fear he should be arrested also,
as so many were daily. I had a passport prepared,
in case we should need it, for flight, the English
consul in Ancona giving me one, though I had
lost all my rights as a British subject by marrying

132 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

a foreigner — but England had given him instruc-
tions to be extra easy in such matters.

During the siege of Ancona, whilst my husband
was at his post in Rome, a friend came to confide
to me his intention of flying to Ancona, with his
wife and family, to place them under the security
of its guns, and proposed to me to accompany
them should I desire to do so. I declined, saying
my children might suffer in the great heat from
want of their cool big house, change of diet, etc.,
that if my husband heard of my flight his anxiety
would be increased tenfold, deterred as he was
from joining us ; moreover any danger seemed
greater to me in a besieged town than in Fermo
where I was known, even should it be attacked.
He left, but, unconvinced I had spoken the real
reasons which detained me in Fermo, this generous
friend returned and delicately offered me no small
loan of money if that was what prevented my
joining in their flight ; I could only thank him
but still refused.

Courage — or what appears so to the many who
in flight see a remedy against all sorts of dangers,
whereas these are oftenest increased thereby — is
contagious, and next day I learnt that my example
induced this friend to relinquish his own purposed
flight.

In autumn we decided to quit Fermo and settle
in our small country house, in Martin Sicuro, just
across the Neapolitan border. One morning,there,

Public Life Again 133

my husband received the visit of an official sent
to intimate to him his immediate departure from
the realm — no time was allowed him to send for
horses — (his own had been given to Pius IX. as
a war contribution), so oxen were put to the
carriage and off he went, accompanied by the
official. Next day I was ordered to follow with
the children, but I refused to do so till one of my
babies had got rid of a slight fever, saying, " I
won't stir unless removed bodily, and I'm heavy
to carry ! " — so they gave in.

Once, many weeks previously, my husband
had chanced to say, at the '* caffe," " If these
taxes reduce me to it, I shall remedy money
matters by my wife returning to the profession."
These words, spoken idly out of mere irritation,
were reported at once by a gentleman present to
a theatrical agent in Rome, one of the Ronzi
brothers, who on the strength of the same came to
Fermo, called, and offered me a " scrittura " for the
ensuing Carnival in Rome, to sing " Semiramide,"
with Alboni as Arsace, and " Robert le Diable."
My husband was absent in Ancona ; on his return
I took his breath away by this news ; at first he
utterly scouted the notion, and laughed at the
bare suggestion. ... I was nursing a baby among
other difficulties. But I made him observe the
curious coincidence of "Semiramide" being the
self-same opera I had made my first appearance in
in Padua, and which had never been sung for years.

134 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

** Robert le Diable," quite a novelty, long sighed
for, Alboni as companion, bass and tenor good,
etc. — my own anxiety to see him safe out of all
the late tyrannical arrests — arms and books were
all seized — and how were our children to be
educated under such a regime ? ... At last he
consented, and great was the consequent hubbub.
We closed our house — letting it, later, the better
to preserve it — and departed for Rome at the end
of November, 1849

Here there awaited us one of those strange
combinations which happen, though rarely, in real
life, but are thought too unnatural for fiction.
Domeniconi, a respectable man, an actor, had
only lent his name as my impresario to cover that
of the notorious Jacovacci, whose fishy transactions
were too well — or ill — known to allow him to appear
openly. Originally a fishmonger, he had been for
years, off and on, nominally or not, the impresario
of Roman theatres, and was so when I had been
cheated — the authorities abetting — into singing,
almost gratis, that half-Carnival in 1843. Fearing
his name might prevent my accepting to sing
under his management, he had prevailed on
Domeniconi to lend his name ; Alboni's engage-
ment had not been concluded, which prevented
"Semiramide" being performed. Already Italy
produced few singers able to attempt such operas,
screaming having taken the place of singing by
youngsters whose voices were cheaply and quickly

Re-appearance 135

taught to perform screams able to outdo the
orchestra ; instruments playing the voice parts
in unison all through resulted in soon ruining the
voices and the public ear ; noise and ever louder
noise soon was required and furnished. As to
"Robert le Diable,"the government would not allow
its performance under any mask or new appella-
tion. As these two operas were those I was
engaged by contract to sing, and neither being
possible, I held the whip hand over my former
cheat, and could have enforced payment, legally,
without singing a note. A most rare state of things
and very tempting ! But rogues are never treated
as they deserve by those whose moral level is
superior to theirs, and we renounced enforcing our
rights. Moreover, the public, the only patron I
ever recognised, would have been disappointed and
vexed with me, though legally in my right. Above
all, we preferred not to risk irritating the autho-
rities, who did all they could to worry my husband
about passports or permits to remain ; during the
entire season he was repeatedly called to the police
office to give his reasons why he thus suddenly
made his wife return to her profession — too
obviously a political protest against the doings
of Papal misgovernment, and the Austrians, to be
palatable to them.

We came to terms with the impresario, and
Donizetti's "Poliuto" was finally decided on as
the opera to open the season with. Lovely as this

136 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

opera is, its libretto became a symbol of what was
being enacted in Rome, at that moment, so
abhorrent to the majority. The bass, Settimio
Severo, was rechristened General Oudinot, and
the whole story represented French troops re-
pressing Rome's liberty ! Nevertheless the public
endured us, singers, and the lovely music over-
came a little their dislike to the libretto.

The revolutions had ruined many of the lesser
Italian theatres, and La Pergola, in Florence, had
many dependents needing help ; a spring season
was organised by the Ronzi brothers, and I was
engaged to sing " Sonnambula " with Naudin.

1850

In spring we left Rome, shaking its dust from our
feet, and we never returned to it till 1871, after
its liberation from Papal rule. The journey to
Florence was so bitterly cold that icicles rattled
in my husband's beard, as he sat outside, the
children, myself, and the nurse inside.

Rossini was living then in Florence, and he —
as ever — was as kind as any affectionate uncle
could have been ; I long kept the cadences he
wrote for our duett. At the end of the season
some one had the happy idea to propose a per-
formance of the " Stabat," for the benefit of the poor
artisans and dependents of the theatre ; this was

Social Prejudices 137

such a grand financial success that the performance
was repeated once, if not twice — no one more
pleased than the beloved maestro.

Whilst singing at La Pergola I had a curious
proof of the strength of class prejudice. I was
driving home from rehearsal in the artists' carriage
when, seeing a friend, highly-born and more
highly cultivated, liberal in her views and an
authoress of educational works, I descended to join
her. She met me smiling, saying ; ** Dear Clara,
how ingenuous you are to drive thus publicly in
the *carrozza della mala carne,' * as it is called."
I looked my surprise, and she added, " Well, you
will admit that there is a great deal of evil life in
the theatre." " True, indeed," I replied, " only —
on which side of the curtain ? " She was breath-
less, and I continued, " Allowing that, sometimes,
members of my profession are not immaculate,
that is the case in every rank and every station
of life ; at this moment the entire theatrical troupe,
dancers included, is absolutely respectable, not so
the audience, and if you, there, criticise the con-
duct of the performers, these repay you in kind.
Florence is rife with scandals of various sorts, so
from which tier and on which side, right or left,
shall I begin with ? " And she could not deny
the notorious irregularities, so regular as to be
tolerated. Priests ever persecuted the stage. . . .
The Galilean Church even denied its sacraments

* Carriasre of the dissolute.

138 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

to theatrical artists ! and early laws classed them
as " vagabonds."

From Florence we proceeded to Nice, where
my parents had settled with my sister Sabilla, the
rest of the family visiting them from England,
once or twice in the year. They came that summer,
and Alfred brought me Mendelssohn's " Elijah " —
that glorious novelty; at sight I sang and fell in love
with " Hear ye, Israel," Alfred's nose bursting out
bleeding with emotion. We hoped and had been led
to believe that our children would be taken under
the wing of my mother, but my father's relapse
to melancholia made him object, and we had to
reconstruct our plans for them when my profession
obliged me to separate ourselves from them. To
leave my children, from whom 1 had hitherto
never been separated, whom I had never suffered
servants to wash, dress, or walk with, whose every
garment, except shoes, I had made with my own
fingers, was the one terrible sacrifice I had to make,
for their sakes, above all.

Having signed a contract for Lisbon, we
embarked in the autumn at Genoa on board a
Portuguese ship, once English, the Royal Tar, under
command to convey the opera companies to
Lisbon and Oporto. A set of newspaper re-
porters had been invited to make the trip, to
propitiate them in favour of the impresario.
These gentry invaded the best cabins, appropri-
ating all comforts and necessaries out of the

Voyage to Lisbon 139

remaining cabins ; only when land was left behind
did we discover that no mattress or covers were
extant on the shelves called beds in the tiny cabin
allotted to us, which we preferred to the larger
cabin in common with others. On bare boards,
therefore, I had to roll during the eight or ten
days' journey, with our cloaks for coverings and
our carpet bags for pillows.

The sea kept fairly smooth, except in the bay
of Marseilles, where it was rough and terrible, and
I suffered dreadful sea-sickness — not so my hus-
band, a born sailor, who loved boisterous waves.
On board was also Mme. Stolz, of Paris fame,
though now no longer engaged there as too old.
Donizetti had composed for her " Favorita," " Don
Sebastiano," and other operas, mostly crippled
by her insufficient voice. On my wedding tour
through Paris, I was present at the first night of
this lovely ' Don Sebastiano ' with Stolz, Baroadet
and Dupres, these latter admirable singers and
actors.

At Gibraltar we landed, and passed twenty-four
hours. Major C. and his wife were kindness
itself, and took us to the Alameda, where the grand
sunset with the African mountains, blue and
glorious, remains a vision imprinted for ever on
my brain. Next day they drove us to see the
Commander-in-Chief's summer residence, and
whilst the others went to see the higher defences
— permitted only when in company of a superior

140 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

officer in uniform — I remained alone, a rare luxury
I greatly enjoy ; after a while, looking up at the
wood-covered rocks, I saw, to my delight, whole
flocks of monkeys frisking about, and when the
party returned I was informed that monkeys
though known to exist, are very rarely perceived,
so that I was quite envied my good fortune by many
who had lived for years on " the rock " without
ever setting eyes on one.

Towards evening we returned on board, the
sea so rough it was not easy to get off the sailing
boat up the side of the steamboat. The change of
motion from the Mediterranean to the ocean
waves brought on sea-sickness again after passing
the Straits, so that I missed seeing Cadiz and the
coast — to my great regret.

At Lisbon we had to undergo the most thorough
personal search any custom house (" cuss-damn "
house, as my brother calls such !) ever inflicted,
the women having to disrobe before a woman who
examined each garment, and the men having to
do the same before an official. Later this treat-
ment was explained to us : the captain had
smuggled a quantity of tobacco, which fact was
suspected, and later discovered. This ignorant
rogue was so little fit to direct his ship that an
English cabin-boy, on board, confided to me that
he had been taken on ship down the African coast
as the only means of communication between the
captain and the English stokers, but that he meant

Lisbon 141

to run away at Gibraltar. I not only begged him
not to do so but gave him substantial inducements
to remain, promising him more at Lisbon. Had he
not remained, it has often haunted me what might
have been our fate, and that of the ship !

A hospitable custom in Lisbon gave us all
three or four days' lodging in some hotel, during
which to find permanent abodes for our six months'
stay. We were appointed to an hotel, once a large
convent, kept by a French widow, Mme. Rade-
gonde. This admirable godsend of a hostess kept,
rather than a hotel, a boarding-house of old
acquaintances of her husband, to whom she acted
like a mother. She offered us a separate suite of
rooms, to cook our meals and send them up to us ;
we added a carpet and armchairs, which we left
as a legacy to her, on our departure, on condition
she herself should enjoy them — which I misdoubt
she carried out ! All her boarders adored her, and
we also followed suit very soon.

Lisbon, so renowned as one of the three
supremely beautiful positions in Europe — Con-
stantinople and Naples being the other two —
disappointed me ; but I grew to love it, and
therefore to tolerate its hills covered by count-
less windmills on the opposite shore of the wide
Tagus. What, indeed, is incomparable is Cintra, and
also CoUares and environs. W. Beckford's villa,
*' Montserrat," immortalised by Byron, has be-
come an utter ruin in an incredibly short time,

142 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

not a door, window, or hinge remains, nothing but
its cascades and paradisiacal beauties of nature,
totally uncultivated nowadays.

I began the season by singing "Beatrice di
Tenda,"but the climate disagreed with me at once
and brought on frightful biliousness. One evening
I had a terrible attack, and after many hours'
retching and no food, the doctor, called in by the
impresario, certified to my inability to sing that
night. Early though it was, the theatre was
already crammed, the Queen Dona Maria da Gloria,
the King-Consort and the Empress (widow) of
Brazil being present ; no second opera was ready
which could be substituted for " Beatrice," and
the dilemma was a serious one to the poor impre-
sario. To show my good will, I consented to be
carried bodily, to the theatre, there to be dressed
in the intervals of sickness, and make the attempt.
Biliousness, though it weakens, acts on the voice,
sweetening its tones, and I was able to get through
the opera, but fainted at its end on the stage.
Little do critical, well-wrapped up ladies, in their
boxes, know of these heroisms — in their small
way — so frequent behind the scenes ; draughts
to be endured by singers in light draperies, whose
colds and loss of voice are stigmatised as caprices,
though to them meaning loss of money at the
time, and possibly utter ruin, if that precarious
treasure, their voice, be permanently injured or
lost.

Portuguese Society 143

The Papal Nuncio, Mgr. — later Cardinal — di
Pietro, a perfect gentleman and very amiable,
invited us to one of his very first receptions,
where he became acquainted with Lord Bloom-
field, and his wife, Lomonosoff, Russian minister,
and most of the Corps Diplomatique, whose
receptions we seldom missed from that time, as
also the grand balls given during the winter by
the premier, De Thomar, and his English wife,
the Marquis de Viana, Count Farobo, and others.
This last-named nobleman had a son-in-law,
d'Acunha, an elegant singer and accomplished
gentleman, who was one of the deputies at the
opera-house, and his presence there smoothed
many difficulties and made my position clearly
and pleasantly defined.

An excellent innovation, that year, was the
strict prohibition to any one to enter behind the
scenes, rendered necessary, I was told, by the
boisterous conduct of non-sober officers off the
numerous ships always in the harbour — of all
nations, English ones preponderating. This rule
was much resented, and a threat of hissing was even
raised but never put in execution. Mme. Stolz
sang in the Favorita and Arsace to my Semira-
mide, she looked well in short tunic and her legs
in silk tights, but her voice was wiry and deficient.
The streets in Lisbon are as steep and narrow
as in Genoa, and donkeys serve the same purpose
as in Cairo ; ladies ride on them to go to dances.

144 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

One of the handsomest women still, in society,
was Dona Anna, a royal aunt, married to De
Sontzo, also handsome. The poor Queen, a mould
of unwieldy fat, her chins falling in countless bags
like a beard of flesh, was said — when she waddled
and shuffled into the presence, next her tall, thin,
handsome husband — to represent the Portuguese
arms : the Sword and the Tower ! (of Belem) .
The King-Consort — cousin to Prince Albert of
England — was an elegant musician and artistic in
many ways ; he re-constructed, at Cintra, the
ruined, exquisite, Arabian royal castle there. The
old Duke de Saldanha, celebrated as head of the
liberal revolution which brought Dona Maria to the
throne, was in some way prominent in Lisbon,
during my stay there, and when he came to the
Opera, to show and receive demonstrations, I had
to sing in Portuguese the hymn in his honour :
'' O nobre Saldanha." . . .

Count Farobo had a regal villa at Cintra, in
which was a jewel of a theatre, where nobles only
were invited to take a part. Here was to have been
performed " La Part du Diable," by Scribe and
Auber, but just as all was ready, the prima donna
married and left. This caused great disappoint-
ment, because d'Acunha and many others had
prepared their parts, so Count Farobo requested,
as a great favour, that when the opera season
ended, and I became free to appear elsewhere I
would, as Contessa Gigliucci, take the prima

"La Part dii Diable " 145

donna's part, and thus render possible the per-
formance of this long prepared and desired " Part
du Diable." I could hardly refuse after the end-
less cordialities we had received from the entire
society that winter, so we remained on a few weeks
longer for rehearsals, partly at Cintra, and on the
day fixed went early to the regal residence to pre-
pare for the evening's performance. I had altered
my part from a man's to a woman's on account
of the costume, and only a slight modification in
the dialogue was needed for this change. The
jewel of a theatre had its separate Royal and
Imperial box, at the back of which were rooms
to retire in ; staircases wide and carpeted led
below ; the pit was reserved for men only, a
gallery of two rows of armchairs held the ladies,
and above a sort of open gallery was free to both
sexes, and was infinitely preferred by the young
and unmarried. Between the acts, audience and
performers all joined to dance, one or at most two
dances, a quadrille or a waltz, servants handing
refreshments, and afterwards playing for the
dancers ; for a peculiarity of Count Farobo's was,
that all his servants had to learn music, to play
as band for his balls or as orchestra when private
theatricals took place. A gasometer was in the
park to provide the necessary illumination of
theatre and villa ; a small " zoo " was there, an
aviary, hothouses and greenhouses spacious as at
Chatsworth, and other endless splendours.

L

146 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

1851

From Lisbon we went by sea to England,
arriving in the height of the first Exhibition. In
proof how quickly public performers become a
thing of the past, a lady said to my aunt, ** What,
Clara Novello returned ? is she alive still ? " A
joke with us all for years. I had been only six
years out of sight and hearing. I fell into my
old place at once, resuming my maiden name, but
changing " Miss " into ** Madame," as I objected
to the English habit of public performers con-
tinuing to style themselves " Miss " though having
children. One should respect one's profession or
how can one expect others to do so, and every
detail helps to correct prejudice. My example in
this was imitated at once, mostly rather absurdly,
" Madame " being used in place of " Mrs." even
where the husband was English ! Imitators often
are ignorant of what they blindly follow.

The winter following I was engaged to sing in
Madrid, at the Opera, and there, except for the
glorious picture gallery, most of ni}^ illusions re-
garding Spain and Spaniards left me. Passing
through Burgos, I got a glimpse of its grand cathe-
dral and the capital is evidently not the finest or
most interesting town in Spain. I set to in
earnest to learn Spanish, so similar to Italian as
to create confusion, and in its pronunciation often

Madrid 147

so like German I was forced to give up exercising
myself in this language with my German maid,
as I knew it too little not to find the mixture of
the two bewildering to my head and tongue. My
short road to acquiring Spanish was to read it,
writing out the words I did not know, and placing
the translation found in the dictionary against
each word, which list I learnt by heart ; besides
this I wrote out one verb at least daily. I soon
began to try my tongue on the people around,
who, flattered at my efforts, helped me. Before
our six months' stay had elapsed I was able to
write in Spanish to the head of the Royal library
for permission to see Isabella the Catholic's will,
signed by her own hand (" Yo, la Reyna"), the
splendid collection of coins, and many such trea-
sures. A lovely Spanish poetess, Coronado, mar-
ried to the secretary of the American legation.
Perry, accompanied us. Women were granted
entrance in theory but were kept out as a matter
of fact, with the excuse that their presence dis-
turbed students. I wrote saying that the Sovereign
being a woman, it was outrageous to keep out
women, and thus succeeded in obtaining entrance
which sweet Coronado Perry never could, until
then.

During our sojourn in Madrid we had a curious
specimen of Spanish dominion in Cuba : the
waiter in our " pension," a fine, tall black, of
especially pleasant manners, told us his sad story.

148 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

A gentleman by station and of a wealthy family
in Havana, his lovely young sister unhappily
caught the fancy of a Spanish judge there, and as
she resisted his infamous proposals, and her brother
naturally opposed them, the judge, to rid himself
of Gennaro, accused him of conspiring against the
Government, had him seized, tied to a ladder, and
flogged to bleeding, and in this state shipped him
to Spain, together with others, to be judged there
— the mere sea voyage a long torture. At Cadiz
they were tried, and the best will to make out a
strong case could only sentence them to two
years' detention, at the end of which a first batch
was sent back to Havana ; but here the accounts
of ill-treatment undergone caused such a ferment
that orders were sent to Spain not to allow any of
the others ever to return to Cuba — arbitrary exile
for no offence ! The prison governor took Gennaro
as coachman, in which situation a kick from a
horse broke his leg ; ill-set and neglected, this
lamed him for life. After eighteen years, old and
grey before his time, the craving for his native land,
from which he was kept without any motive being
alleged, made him seek and obtain leave to go to
Madrid, in the forlorn hope that there, somehow,
he might get redress and permission to return
home.

This terrible history so interested us that my
husband endeavoured, through the Nuncio, to
obtain Queen Isabella's consent for Gennaro's

The Empress Eugenie 149

return to Cuba, and so nearly succeeded that we
longed to tell him ; but my husband wisely refrained
until quite sure of success — fortunately ! or bitter
would have been poor Gennaro's disappointment.
In those very days, during a procession in S.
Maria de Atocha, a Cuban, maddened by some
flagrant iniquity, tried to stab the Queen ; the
metal Order of the Virgin on her breast turned the
blow and saved her life, but she forbad the name
of Cuba ever to be pronounced thenceforward
before her, and the Nuncio had not the courage
therefore to intercede for Gennaro, as he had
promised to do.

On the opening of the Opera-house, a gala
night. Queen Isabella kept a crammed house
waiting above two hours I She was then twenty-
two years old, and looked any age above that ;
such animal eyes I never beheld, and I blushed
only to look at her — a very pig's countenance.
At a friend's request I brought back to England
some coins with the Queen's profile, flattered be-
yond recognition, which my friend would not and
could not believe other than shameful calumnies !
In Madrid I heard a great deal about Eugenie
de Montijos, and her sister the Duchess of Alba,
who nightly occupied her stage box at the Opera ;
endless were the anecdotes, useless to repeat here,
rife about the former, but one of her sayings is
worth recording because of after events so impos-
sible to foresee, much less expect ; she often said.

150 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

" I can never realise my vocation, for I feel that I
am born to be an Empress ! "

" La Noche buena " — Christmas Eve — else-
where a holiday, opera is performed in Madrid,
but travestied, men's parts are acted by women,
etc. ; Angri, the contralto, profited by this curious
fashion, to try if she could succeed in the role of
Carlo v., in "Ernani." Unfortunately she was only
accepted as a good joke, whereas she had hoped
for a serious success, enabling her to repeat the
part in Spain and elsewhere.

During the season I sang in " Semiramide,"
" Giuramento," and Alice in " Robert le Diable."
The climate of Madrid is disagreeable and danger-
ous ; a subtle cold wind, proverbially said in Spain
to extinguish a man though not extinguishing a
candle, caught me one afternoon, though only
walking the length of our house, and kept me
eleven days in bed, and for long after my hitherto
strong bronchial tubes felt the effects of it. At
last the sighed-for end of our stay arrived ! we
had counted the days, one by one, for a long time
previously.

"Robert le Diable" requires much scene-shifting,
and this was executed so slowly that the opera
always concluded an hour or more after midnight.
The impresario — a dire cheat, though decorated
by the order of Calatrava — I had had many tilts
with in his attempted frauds, telling him openh^,
when he swore on his " honra " not to appeal to

Departure from Lisbon 151

that, for then I knew he was deceiving me ! —
decUned, as usual, to pay the last quarter, so I
threatened that if he did not, my engagement
ending at midnight, I would cease singing at that
hour and leave Robert to the Devil, unsaved by
Alice ! However, as my husband and I were both
anxious that our departure early next morning
should in no way be delayed, I sang the opera to
the end, only long after obtaining, and not in full,
the last quarter.

Alas ! what made us so anxious to depart was
the news, received but few days previously, of the
weak state of health of one of our children in Genoa.
It was necessary to alter many things in regard
to them, so it was settled that we should separate
at Bayonne — renouncing all our plans for visiting
Toledo, the Escurial, etc. — my husband proceed-
ing direct to Genoa, through Languedoc, and I,
alone, to London, to fulfil the many engagements
which were to furnish the means ; for my husband's
property beyond Tronto had been practically con-
fiscated, and the part in the Marche, deprived of
his supervision, gave hardly any returns.

How little is taken into account what artists, all
more or less, have to go through when obliged to
sing or perform in public ; to smile while in great
anxiety or sorrow, and to control emotion while
singing or acting scenes to excite emotion ! But
God helps all earnest efforts to bear what He sees
fit to send if we ask His help.

152 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

At the end of the season we went to Nice, and
there hired a tiny villa — for twenty-five years
empty — like a bonbonniere in a bouquet of olive
and orange trees, quite near my parents and
Sabilla.

The winter following I sang at La Scala in
Milan — my last theatrical engagement, my husband
preferring, on many accounts, that I should keep
entirely to oratorios, concerts, festivals, and the
like. All his life through money was ever his
least consideration, as he proved repeatedly on
all occasions. At Milan I consented finally to sing
Verdi's " Rigoletto," having till then always refused
it on account of the man's attire in the last act ;
but all exposure of person was obviated, in the
costume arranged with my husband's help : a
long, ample mantle thrown over a long tunic, and
full trousers held at the knee by high boots with
frilled leather tops, produced a costume more
elegant and decent than many gowns ! This opera
was my best and most successful one in Milan.
Several operas have been written for me : " Fingal,"
by Coppola, successful ; " Cleopatra," by . . .
laughed off the stage ; " Foscarini," by Coen, not
bad nor ill-received, and others I forget.

In summer we went to Dusseldorf, for the
Festival, Schumann conducting ; he was begin-
ning already to give signs of the sad mental illness
which overcame him later, and was shy and strange
in many ways. One evening a pretty incident

The Crystal Palace 153

happened : a number of nightingales came and
perched on the high windows above the orchestra,
and seemed excited to outsing Alceste's divine
song — till the audience and I turned our attention
in delight to them.

Prince Albert, in London, had told Costa that
the music with which the first Exhibition had been
opened was below criticism, and that he desired
that the opening of the newly removed, rebuilt
Crystal Palace should have music better worth
hearing. This put Costa in some embarrassment,
for both in size and in its materials that building
was totally unacoustic ; he came to explain his
difficulties to me, and to ask my help, as he thought
the quality of my voice would carry farther than
most other ones. I consented to try, and we
arranged to meet there one Sunday when it was
empty, even of workmen. On arriving, we found
Costa waiting, who gave me no time to be over-
come by the vastness of the space, but made me
a sign to begin " God save the Queen," from the
entrance where I was standing, he remaining in
the centre. The result surpassed his hopes, but
to make doubly sure I told him and my party to
go to the extreme opposite end, and when they
had reached it I sang again, purposely altering one
line of words, which alteration was distinctly heard
by them, though I was hardly visible to the eye.

Clara Novello told us — amused and rather gratified —
how some weeks later, walking in the Crystal Palace

154 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

gardens, a policeman saluted her markedly, and on her
looking up inquiringly, said : " Please 'm, I'm the police-
man who heard you outside, that day," meaning the day
of the first trial.

The following is from Lady Eastlake's journal :
" Opening of the Crystal Palace — Sydenham, 1854 :
Conspicuous in the great orchestra was the only lady
singer; who sat in the centre of the lowest row. . . . Then
Clara Novello pitched her voice and gave forth the first
verse of * God save the Queen,' with a power and dis-
tinctness which were marvellous ; her voice filled the whole
space, and she waited with her notes until they had reached
to the uttermost parts. It was a perfect triumph for
her and no little proof of nerve thus alone and first to
address the vast multitude, but her voice seemed to revel
in the space before it. The way in which she articulated
the words : ' the Queen,' was overwhelming."

I opened most of the new town halls, the one
in Leeds, also the one in Bradford, this latter then
only ten years old as a town, farmhouses being
still quite near to it, in one of which we lodged.
Beards were so little worn, at that time in England,
that the factory girls would mob the foreign
artists who wore such, calling them to their faces
** Nanny goat," and making noises in imitation
of these. On the morning of the inauguration
I met with an accident. I slipped right down
the first flight of our stone staircase — nineteen
steps — which had no banister, my body fortu-
nately inclining towards the wall, otherwise I

Liverpool 155

should have been precipitated down the well, and
broken my back at least. As it was my poor
head bumped on each stone step, only preserved
from being split by a thick tortoiseshell comb, and
the great quantity of my own hair ; but my back
ached severely for many weeks after. Neverthe-
less, I sang that same day, and during all the
festival, five mornings and four evenings, and for
all the ensuing festivals of that season.

The new Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool had
a most effective novelty : hidden behind a cornice
a continuous line of gas caused a light like day
without offending the eyes ; it reflected on the
painted ceilings, making the ** Lancashire witches "
in the hall below look even prettier than usual —
and most becoming to all. Something in the same
style of illumination was to be seen in Lansdowne
House, one of the few palaces in London ; the hall
had wax lights between the grand old statues, but
they would have been insufficient had not gas
fans outside the second top row of windows
thrown brilliant flames, without heat, into the hall ;
the effect was splendid in all ways.

During a State concert I sat opposite and quite
near to Napoleon UL, looking, with his lead-
coloured skin, like one just out of a fit or going
into one, evidently pre-occupied, and hearing not
a note. Dhuleep Singh, the Indian prince, was an
exquisite tableau vivant, and seemed too per-
fectly beautiful to be real ! Not so the several

156 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

other oriental princes, there ; the King of Oude, for
instance, was an ugly, stout little man.

About that time — maybe in 1855 — the first
aquarium was attempted in Regent's Park zoo-
logical gardens, tanks of glass being filled with
sea-water from Brighton. I was among those
invited, one Sunday, to the first private view, and
renewed there my acquaintance with Douglas
Jerrold, present as one of the Press. His appear-
ance made me fancy that ^Esop may have looked
like that : a face flashing with overflowing wit and
satire not to be suppressed and never meant to
wound ; thus one never could feel hurt, but
rather as honoured to be the cause of wit such as
his, and to chance to be the anvil on which he
struck out his sparks. As he stood, cramped by
many pains — and troubles various, surrounded by
the tanks containing the weird-looking, strange
submarine creatures, dragged to view for the first
time, he seemed part of them — a very wizard !

When Jenny Lind returned from America I was
most interested to hear her sing. Chappell
arranged a performance of " Elijah " and I sent for
two tickets — a guinea each — but three were sent.
. . . Her voice was not spontaneous, and pro-
duced only with great effort ; a peculiarity in her
singing was the effect it gave of her doing it alone,
separately, as it were, from the rest, a solo, ever,
accompanied by others, never amalgamating to-
gether. The voice, on the contrary, should, in

Jenny Lind 157

concerted music, ever modify its tones according
to those of the instruments in obbhgato — ringing,
when with a trumpet, mellow with a violoncello,
and so forth ; so that when passages occur, in
thirds for instance, the ear should not be able to
distinguish which is voice, and which is the obbli-
gato instrument ; and great is the charm when
this is obtained. Also in concerted vocal pieces,
the several voices should seem as one, like an
accordion or organ. In manners, also, Jenny
Lind was peculiar ; at a State concert, once, she
would not enter with or sit near us, nor have her
accompaniments played by Costa, so her husband
played to her singing one of Chopin's pianoforte
compositions, to counterbalance which whim he
played a derangement from Norma ; she, between-
whiles, sitting behind the window curtains and
speaking to no one.

As in a procession I saw pass in turns old
Bochsa, harpist, Mrs. Anderson, Mme. Dulcken,
^Ime. Pleyel, Henselt — charming pianist and com-
poser — and Prudent, the French pianist, who,
disgusted at his cool reception, drolly described
English preference for all that Germany threw on
its shores each Spring in these words ; *' quand on
est tres laid, tres sale et qu'on porte des lunettes,
alors on est classique ! " — often true.

Dickens* receptions in Tavistock Street were
models of such ; not imitations of those of the
aristocracy, but superior. I told him that his

158 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

guests should, most of them, be ticketed, like
plants in show places, as celebrities one ought to
look at. There came Lord Lyndhurst, Thackeray,
Wilkie Collins, Trollope, Barry Cornwall, Disraeli,
Lord Carlisle, Brunei, Douglas Jerrold, Egg, Lemon,
etc. One room, dedicated to music, had its quiet
respected, but in other rooms one could listen to
him or to other fine talkers present. Being
requested to contribute by singing, I told him a
song was prepared in the pocket of an overcoat in
the anteroom. Returning with it presently, he
said in his humorous way, ** Rather peculiar,
eh ? for the master to be seen picking the pockets
of his guests — very detrimental to the servants'
morals ! '' He embarrassed me by asking which
of his female characters I preferred ; but I promptly
replied, " Oh, the highest in rank ranks first :
the marchioness, of course." This pleased him,
evidently, for upon this he took me into his
sanctum, showed me several manuscripts of his
works, and how he wrote, explaining his system :
the chapters, in heads of matter, to be developed
after, in each chapter, and the story carried along.
He said to me he was sure the public had never
had, from the reading of his books, a tenth part
of the enjoyment he had had himself in the writing
of them. I soon became almost one of themselves,
at his readings made to sit among his family, and
so forth. Alas ! a stop was suddenly put to all
this by his unhappy separation from his wife, for

Dickens 159

as I did not choose to appear to side with him or
with her I abstained altogether, to my deep loss
and sorrow.

Brunei's father I had only heard of when his
tunnel (under the Thames) was begun and laughed
at, then, as the folly of a French frog-eater I
The son I knew well, a charming man indeed. I
was one of the invited on the trial trip of his
ill-fated colossal ship, Great Eastern, but thought
it best to decline on account of my many engage-
ments. Pleasure is mostly a risk, and usually
incompatible with arduous duties to be fulfilled ;
to this constant prudence I owe the satisfaction
of having earned a name for reliability both with
public and managers. Seldom was I disabled
from fulfilling my engagements, though often I
sang with racking, bilious sick headaches, which
made the hall spin round till I risked falling,
rather than fail those who counted on my appearing.

Chorley, also, gave delightful receptions, where
the company consisted entirely of lions and lionesses,
Mrs. Gaskell among others ; Halle, Mme. Viardot,
and the Sainton Dolbys would make music there,
intimately, in a way one cannot ever hear in public.
Sterndale Bennett would come there, also very
pleasant, but awfully shy, to his own injury.
The Honble. Mrs. Norton, as attractive as she was
perfectly beautiful — not all beauties are attractive!
— was always the chief ornament of the parties
she attended. The celebrated Edwin Landseer,

i6o Clara Novello's Reminiscences

painter mostly of dogs and animals, whom I
met often, asked me once to let him paint my
portrait ; I told him that Italians call bad singers
" dogs," did he mean the same ? !

The Duke of Devonshire was quite the most
perfectly elegant and accomplished aristocrat I
ever met, noble in face, in person, in demeanour.
Only once was I able to accept his oft-repeated
invitation to Chatsworth — that perfect place so
characteristically like himself. We had Queen
Victoria's rooms assigned to my husband and
myself, where the walls were all tapestried by
original drawings of the great masters. The
dining-room below was adorned with family por-
traits by Vandyke, painted by him for those very
places ; eight statues by Canova were in the con-
servatory opening out of one of the suites of rooms.
I told the Duke I found some difficulty in reaching
the dining-room. He interrupted to inquire if no
page had been on the staircase to accompany me.
To which I replied : Yes, but my difficulty had
arisen from the distracting attractions of the
endless sketches by great masters which lined the
said staircase.

This princely man kept three botanical students
at a salary of £300 a year, travelling wherever they
thought best for specimens of new flowers and
plants to be sent to England. He discovered, so
to say, Paxton — later Sir Joseph — when under-
gardener at Kew, where the Duke often went, and

Chatsvvorth 1 6 1

where, if any inquiries he made required special
knowledge, Paxton was always called. When,
therefore, a gardener was needed at Chatsworth,
he wrote to the director at Kew requesting that
Paxton should be sent to him, and Paxton came.
Sir Joseph's house at Chatsworth, the Duke
declared, was preferable to his own. To see the
endless hothouses we drove in the omnibus ex-
pressly constructed to enter these magnificences ;
here grew the water lily, Victoria Regia, in its
separate pond, in a corner of which a tiny wheel,
moved by machinery, gave movement to the water.
This luminous idea of Paxton's caused the Duke's
lily to prosper, whereas the three other examples,
cultivated elsewhere in still water, introduced from
Australia, where they grow in running water — all
died. The enormous leaf had sustained Paxton's
baby girl on it !

An orchestra of eighteen choice performers
from London played after dinner, the Duke, with
ear-trumpet, talking to me the while. I stupidly
expressed my wonder at this, given his love of
music. He sighed, saying, " I do indeed love it,
and for a double motive : it is only while music is
going on that I can hear well." I could have wept
from pity and vexation at my blundering.

When we look back from age at our youth, we
come to judge ourselves then, as another person ;
if too indulgently sometimes, this is counter-
balanced by inward knowledge of black spots in us,

M

1 62 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

unsuspected by others, and hidden by due shame.
This accounts for the strange judgments of others,
often severe to faults we do not acknowledge as
existing in us, and sometimes causing us to smile
sadly at praise we feel utterly undeserved.

I have never cared for the many verses thrown
to me nor kept any, except Charles Lamb's
and Giovanni Prati's, who, at Padua, on my
debut wrote some very pretty, sad ones ; as they
contained a political fling at Austria, the police
suppressed them, so they never appeared in any
of his printed collected works. Nor did I ever
retain, or care for, the endless certificates sent me
as honorary member of quantities of societies —
too often and easily conferred to have any flattery
left in such an act.

Clara Novello received during her life quantities of
letters from celebrities : Rossini, Meyerbeer, Mercadante,
Dickens, etc, ; but as she herself states, she was the reverse
of a collector, and gave away these interesting autographs
to almost any one who begged them of her, keeping only
Lamb's verses, and a few of Rossini's letters containing
friendly paternal counsels. The greater part of the
autographs she possessed were given by her to her dear
American friend, Mrs. George P. Marsh, in Turin, when,
after the War of Secession, a monster bazaar was got up
in America in aid of the wounded. The incredibly large
sum realised by the sale of the autographs was a source
of heartfelt satisfaction to Clara, who ever maintained,
when allusion was made to having parted with such

Florence Nightingale 163

treasures, that the autographs could never have been used
to better purpose.

When the Crimean war broke out it took every
one by surprise — people did not seem to credit
the possibihty of such a thing. Italy's taking part
in it was her first assertion of herself, and on
Italians, on my husband, the effect was electrical,
opening vistas unlimited. Cavour began to shine
on the horizon — that revered, adored, unequalled
giant ! Now and then the Almighty sees fit to
show what He can create under the name of a
man under His own image. (Alas ! how often this
last is rendered incredible !) I saw him later, in
Turin, and again in Chamounix, when he rushed
away in despair over the Villafranca treason,
brought about by Prussia's envy and fear of
France.

In this year we saw the largest comet, called
Halley's, because he had announced its return at
this precise date ; the superstitious insisted on
seeing a connection between it and the war.

Soon arose the fame of Florence Nightingale.
As ever with superiority and extra, incomprehen-
sible goodness, she was much criticised, blamed
as unfeminine, as hunting for a husband (!), as
inducing other ladies to " degrade themselves "
in the same fashion. . . . Among the most cen-
sorious, as usual, were the clergy ; but one of
these received once a rebuke which he found

164 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

unanswerable. Speaking of her, the reverend gentle-
man said, in disparaging tones, " She is not a Church-
woman ; what sect may she belong to ? " "To
the extremely rare one of the Good Samaritan ! "
was the answer. Long after her return, and when,
as result of her labours, she had developed a terrible
heart-disease, I went to sing to her, she having
expressed a desire to hear me in " From Mighty
Kings," which the public insisted on associating
with Garibaldi, for whom Miss Nightingale had
quite an enthusiasm. Knowing this, I wrapped my
music in a tricoloured silk handkerchief, which
she at once desired as I had foreseen, she giving
me in exchange one of her holland bags for hospital
purposes. I had it marked with her name, and
put it among my treasures. Her charming cousin,
H. Bonham Carter, then living with her, said to
me, " After teaching us how to nurse, she now
shows us how to be an invalid." Unable to lie
at length, she sat propped up by cushions, before
a big fire, an open window blowing in the damp
evening wind (in London there is no air, only
wind or fog and gas escape, mixed!). Between
her eager questions she would fall back gasping,
to my terror, and next day I was laid up from the
effects of the strain in controlhng all outward
emotion. Some days later she wrote me a long
letter of six pages, full of highly interesting political
matter, begging me earnestly to destroy it after
perusal, and I obeyed, with what infinite regrets

Cholera 165

words cannot express, but I fully concurred in
such precaution against the many who batten on
what they can publish when death renders their
prey defenceless.

In the autumn of this year, 1854, the cholera,
alas ! took my dear mother. I had left London,
though begged to remain for one concert more,
urged by some strange desire to return to Nice.
I brought my mother a letter from my father — in
Boulogne, by doctor's orders, for change of air —
and this greatly pleased her. I sang to her, and
in the evening she came to our villa near by. On
leaving me, she said, " Were I to die to-morrow,
I could not have spent a happier day than this one,
for which I bless you/' — and it proved her last day.
Summoned early next morning to her, the doctor,
not knowing me, whispered, '* Don't tell the
Signora Sabilla, but to you I say this is cholera —
first case in Nice." Her general health was already
so shaken that she had no strength to resist the
illness, and she succumbed to it in a few hours,
without pain, in my arms.

As we were about to leave Nice, Sabilla had a
slight attack of cholera, which delayed our de-
parture. Arrived in London, she had a second
attack ; my husband also was seized, and pre-
sently I was down with it. It left me so weak
that we believed it would be impossible for me to
sing, as engaged, at three festivals, and in a tour
of six weeks ; but to write and put off all these

1 66 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

engagements seemed an undertaking more appal-
ling still ; and as the doctor ordered country air
where we were due, we just let things take their
course. A sweet lodging with garden had already
been secured in Worcester, and there we went,
and in the garden, where I had a sofa taken, I
would lie for hours ; nevertheless I was able to
sing, though obliged to hold on to a chair whilst
standing.

I noticed then for the first time, what has
repeated itself in every recurrence of this epidemic :
a sort of irresistible mania seizes every one to talk
of nothing but it, its symptoms and every detail
of it, however gruesome, though all doctors
declare that such talk increases and even pro-
duces the evil ; as a fact, when my first attack
was just over, our landlady told me of a case
having proved fatal on a sudden relapse, and a
quarter of an hour later I had, myself, a relapse !
However, to my own surprise, and that of all
those around me, I got through all the three or
four festivals, and the subsequent tour of six
weeks. I decided, on many accounts, not to wear
mourning when I sang in public, resuming it, of
course, between whiles, and for this I received,
later, official thanks from the various committees,
as the sight of the principal singer in deep mourning
would, they declared, have added to the general
prevalent gloom, by keeping the haunting subject
constantly in the mind.

offer for America 167

1855

When in early summer we returned to Nice,
I was able to rest, but I was so run down that the
doctor ordered me the hot iron baths of St. Didier,
in the Valle d'Aosta ; thither we went, and these
miraculous, almost unknown waters, completely
restored my strength, since which first visit we
have often profited by their restorative powers,
delighting also in the lovely place.

Early in the year I had had offers to visit
America, but dreaded the sea too much to close
with any. At last, so large were the terms offered
me for a nine months' tour, that I considered it
my duty towards my children not to decline.
Inexperience made me insist, however, that these
terms should be assured me for two years to
indemnify me for the double sea- journey, the cost
and trouble of breaking up our establishment in
Nice, and placing our children with due stability
in their various schools. On this point a telegram
from America was to decide, yes or no. Whilst
we were in St. Didier it arrived — " No " — and in
my selfishness I rejoiced deeply, though the large
sum thus declined made a serious difference.
Never in my life, however, have I had such a
signal favour ! A clause in the contract specified
that, any circumstance of " force majeure "

1 68 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

intervening, the contract would be null and void,
and as the American war broke out just about, and
after, the time I should have arrived there, had
I accepted I should have made the two sea
journeys in vain, and upset all my professional
engagements in England, not to speak of my
children's unsettlings and resettlings ; — I have
seldom thanked God more intensely ! I had
overcome my cowardice and accepted, but had
been mercifully prevented undergoing the severe
trial and suffering, and financial loss besides.

In 1859 the War of Independence broke out in
Italy. The English have always sympathised
with Austria, and even during this war they
expressed their vexation at Austria's constant
defeats, openly, even to Italians ; but the year
after, when Italy rose up against her other tyrants,
great and small, English sympathy all went with
her. On the day after the battle of Castel Fidardo,
which rang the downfall of Papal rule in the Marche,
my husband, who carried his nationality plainly
written on his face, went to his club, and there
an Englishman, a total stranger, came towards
him, and handing him the paper which contained
the news of Lamoriciere's defeat, shook him
heartily by the hand. Given the unique reserve
of the English, such demonstrativeness towards an
unknown stranger was clear indication of the
general feeling.

When it was announced that the liberated

Retirement 169

provinces were called on to vote for annexation
to Piedmont, my husband rushed over from
England to Fermo — his return to it after eleven
years' absence quite a triumphal entry — and there,
at the head of all his peasants, he and they voted
in favour of annexation, one of the greatest joys
of his whole life.

Our motives for my remaining in the pro-
fession having ceased to exist, I closed my artistic
career in November, i860.

At Nice the French entered, taking it and
Savoy, though only the half had been fulfilled of
what Louis Napoleon had promised Cavour and
Italy in return for these two provinces. We
therefore left Nice, and tried Genoa for a year,
my brother, also, leaving Nice at the same time,
selling his villa there, and purchasing in Genoa
an exquisite ancient villa, which I discovered
while house-hunting, and which is now called
Villa Novello.

In spring of 1861 we both revisited Fermo,
after nearly twelve long years' absence on my part.
I found my contemporaries in my own station of
life had all, more or less, worn well ; not so, alas !
our peasants, become — the women especially —
aged beyond recognition. The principal cause of
this, in the last-named — besides labours often too
rough for their sex — is the habit, become a law,
that three days after childbirth they not only rise
from bed but carry all their linen on the head

170 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

to the river, often at some distance, there to
wash it.

My husband being elected member of Parha-
ment, was obhged to be in Turin, then the capital,
so I induced him to take us all there ; he rather
feared its cold climate for the children, accus-
tomed to the warm one of Nice, but risked it in
compliance with my strong desire to be all together.
I used to complain to him, in joke, that I no longer
had a husband, but only a member ! The removal
to Turin was a complete success, for its climate, far
from harming, absolutely strengthened the health
of our children.

Count Gigliucci, besides being returned member, was
elected one of the eight secretaries of the House, in
which capacity he had the honour and unspeakable joy,
on the 2ist March, 1861, of affixing his name to the reso-
lution which declared Italy a United Kingdom under
Victor Emanuel II. — a joy which amply compensated him
for all past trials, sufferings and loss.

Here I retired absolutely to revel in the
delights and duties of home, which I had so long
foregone for love's sake. Only very gradually
did I begin to make acquaintances, some few of
whom became valued, life-long friends — that rarest
of treasures. . . . Castiglia, fellow-prisoner with
Silvio Pellico, whose beautiful face crowned with
silver hair brought to mind a saint's head with
aureole, — Giovanni Arrivabene, Carlo Poerio, " the

The Risorgimcnto 171

adorable Baron," Manzoni, d'Azeglio, Ricasoli, all
assembled in Turin, a very phalanx of rare and
choice spirits, varied individually yet completely
at one in noble end : Italy's unity and rise.

Our summers we now passed in old Fermo,
with an occasional month in St. Didier, and our
winters in Turin. These years, spent in Turin,
were the happiest of my whole life, happy in my
husband's joy and boundless hopes, which I
shared. ... I, never ambitious for myself, was
very much so for those I best loved — husband, sons,
and daughters . . .

First and foremost among the friends I then
made was dear Mrs. George P. Marsh, wife to the
American minister, " my dear perfection," as I
called her. When the capital was transferred to
Florence, we met again there, and again in Rome,
after 1870.

Great was my disgust, and that of many others
besides myself, when the capital was suddenly,
and rather mysteriously it appeared, removed to
Florence. Rome, as the necessary key-stone of
Italy's unity, was always talked of, but as of
some far off " bright particular star " none believed
they should live to see. My husband disliked the
climate of Florence, and on many accounts
decided it was best to return to live permanently
in Fermo. Our eldest son entered the army, our
second, a military school. For our girls we had
first an English governess, and afterwards a

172 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

German one, procured us by the Mendelssohns in
Bonn. Fraulein J. proved one in a thousand in
most ways, and in teaching and knowledge beat
most professors hollow; but oh, what trials mothers
go through, never taken into account, whilst those
of governesses are so bemoaned ! A tragic muse,
let loose about the house, represented most nearly
Fraulein, J. ! taking umbrage where only kind-
ness was intended, insisting on seeing letters
meant only for a mother's eye, outraged because
begged not to set up her " tabernacle " per-
manently where friends came to discuss their
private affairs with me, in despair because when
a French governess was needed to perfect the girls'
French she was not invited to remain as com-
panion to me (why ? !) . . . Nevertheless she re-
mained to the end of her life our honoured friend,
and more than once came on visits to us.

Our return to Fermo caused a revival of its
once greater social brilliance ; once a week we
received, had music, after which dancing. At
some of these meetings Marini and Briccialdi,
both celebrated flautists, played ; Ludovico Grazi-
ani. Fagotti, and many another celebrity sang,
sometimes with me and also with my daughter
and younger son ; our cousin, Contessa V., an
excellent pianist, also gave help, and often the
roofs outside were crowded with listeners.

The War 173

1866

Both our sons took part in the war against
Austria, the elder as officer, the younger running
away from college to join Garibaldi ; this, to
ensure a chance of fighting, in which he suc-
ceeded, gaining the " menzione onorevole " at the
sharp fight of Vezza, instead of being made to
spend some months in barracks, learning ! We
visited both sons to impart a blessing, our elder
near Mantua, our younger at Varese, and then
went to Genoa, where a friend. General Garavelli,
being in command there, could give us the latest
news and telegrams as the war proceeded. It was
an awful time and tried one's patriotic enthusiasm
to the quick. I prayed for and was granted calm,
outwardly, as long as uncertainty lasted, but broke
down when the war, in July, was practically over,
and for many months after my health felt the
effects of the strain.

The winter of 1868-69 we passed in Florence.
The decline and fall of the Fine Arts made itself
felt first in music — that staff of life to Italians.
The last opera which created a real genuine thrill
was Gounod's " Faust," which I had gone purposely
to Florence some years previously to hear, weep-
ing nearly all through ; Stigelli, the tenor, was
perfect. Singers became so rare, I went later

174 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

from Fermo to Macerata, to hear Galletti in
" Favorita " ; a fine singer and actress, and though
much worn had still " good pickings " about her—
as was said of James the author ! E. Bellincioni
has artistic feeling, as well as sweet voice, face
and style. . . .

When the French " sbirri " were called away
from Rome to a less degrading employment,
Papal misrule collapsed at once, like all thorough
rottenness. Like other longed-for things the pos-
session of Rome, as capital of Italy, once obtained,
caused as much embarrassment as startled joy.
Had Cavour been alive, doubtless the conduct of
affairs would have been very different, but Cavours
are not plentiful at any time, and though good
men and true did their best, nobly — opposed as
ever by the '' sinisters," greedy for power and
spoil — mediocracy* devoured by envy, little by
little got the upper hand.

On Rome becoming free, my husband naturally
wished to witness its resuscitation, and we all went
there the winter of 1870-71, the great Tiber
overflow causing us to delay somewhat.

In the spring we returned to Fermo by way
of Naples, to show it to our daughters, and to
revisit it ourselves after our wedding tour in
1843-44. Our stay here was rendered so dis-
agreeable by incessant deluges of rain that we
shortened it and returned home, where we were

* Word self-coined.

Roman Society 175

surprised by snow, though shght, whitening all
around. Next day we went up to the Duomo,
where a crowd attended a grand benediction by
the Cardinal-Archbishop. The heat was great,
and coming out into the sharp evening air my
husband took cold ; severe bronchitis ensued, with
relapses, and when he finally rose from bed he was
changed to an elderly man, and it was necessary
for the future to winter out of keen Fermo air.
The climate of Rome suited best his health, and
being the centre of political interests, suited his
tastes and intellect. Since 1871 we have never
wintered elsewhere, the more so that when he
consented to stand again he was again returned
member.

... I early made the pleasant acquaintance
of Mrs. J., mother, by her first marriage, of the
author, Marion Crawford ; and soon after of the
S.'s. W. S. was an enchanting companion, and in
their house his clever devoted wife assembled all
who were worth seeing and knowing in, or passing
through, Rome. On the top of the Barberini
palace their apartment included an elegant theatre,
in which he with sons and daughter acted. Once,
after a crowded reception, he threw himself into
an armchair, declaring he felt **like an exhausted
receiver." Of Geneva he said the motto should
be, " Watch and pray ! " But it would fill pages
to repeat his witticisms.

In 1873 I had the happiness of knowing Mrs.

176 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

W. Grey, and her sister. Miss E. Shirreff, of educa-
tional and literary celebrity, and they both
became, almost from the first, dearest of friends.
For them, in delicate health, and rarely able to
attend concerts or theatres, I took to singing
again, and Mrs. Grey's birthday, 7th of March, was
always kept musically ; sometimes Sgambati joined
us, sometimes a cousin of ours who played the
violin. Some rare times I sang also in my own
house, for a few friends, at their special request. . . .

The following letters were written by Clara Novello
to Mr. and Mrs. J. Field of Philadelphia, by them pre-
served and with rare delicacy returned to her daughter
on the death of Mr. Field. A selection from a great
number is here given, as the letters, written to cheer a
sick friend, and in the belief that that object once accom-
plished they would go to the waste-paper basket, give
some notion of Clara Novello's life in those years, as well
as an insight into her character, her opinions and tastes.

March, 1875.

Dear Friends — How can I thank you sufficiently
for the many pleasures of this brightest of days
in the Fields ! For a long time the sweetness of
it will counteract the worries of this life. God
bless you both, dear, refreshing souls !

Bad News 177

May, 1875.

So you know the fatal news.* I have just
seen the dear Marshes ; fancy H. inquirmg for
news of the steamer, and being told there was no
news of it, adding : " Are you not getting anxious
about Carrie ? " Mrs. Marsh replied, '' There is
always a certain amount of anxiety over travellers
especially by sea." The doctor has told them
that if the awful truth were told H. it might kill
her, in her present state, so I suggested — against
my own feeling, having no belief in lies ! — if they
would not devise some tale, with which to deceive
H. temporarily ; but Mrs. Marsh seems to think
that any falsehood would be a sort of taking
things into mortal hands against the trials sent by
the Almighty. This is precisely my own feeling,
still, when the case is that of a sick girl who would
die of the blow the truth would give^the doctor
says — I'm afraid I should be tempted against all
principle and faith. God help, direct, and sustain
them ! What humility such lessons teach us,
seeing our total inability to relieve those one would
sacrifice so much to help in however small a way.
We must turn to Him in our sorrows !

June, 1875.

Mr. Story's bust of Keats is very spirited; it
is Mrs. Lawrence's commission. Going to see

* A niece of Mrs. Marsh, coming to her from America, was lost in
the Schiller, wrecked off the Scilly Islands, whilst another niece, H.,
lihen living with her, was lying dangerously ill with typhus.

N

178 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

Mr. Warrington Wood's medallion of Keats, we
found him and his wife in the midst of the annual
little fete given to all the employes of his studio.
First they were all photographed in a group, then
a maccaroni feast, finally a dance in the moonlight,
to mandolins and guitars. The W.'s insisted on
our sitting for a group with them, and as usual
we are horrors. Yesterday the W/s left for
England, indeed, all who can leave us here the
reverse of " high and dry ! " . . . The S.'s told
us friend John * was in Venice, so he must have
met and enjoyed the society of the lovely loveable
Lawrence and Chapman sisters. Mrs. D. gave
me lately good news of lovely Mrs. Lawrence, that
Greek statue and genial-hearted woman — God's
last, and therefore best, work !

Rome, 2nd March, 1875.

Dear Mme. la Comtesse,

I have ordered the copies you require of the
photograph,! and have written to Mrs. Cowden Clarke
about them. I return her letter with best thanks for
allowing me the perusal of it. Mr. Warrington Wood
has kindly undertaken to execute a model of the medal-
lion (Keats) gratis, merely charging the cost of its transfer
to marble. I send you a sonnet on the sketch of Keats,,
inspired by Mrs. Cowden Clarke's letter.

Yours very truly,

Vincent Eyre. J

* Mr. John Field's family belonged to the Society of Friends, there-
fore Clara addressed him thus playfully.

t Keats, sketch by Severn.

X It was owing to the exertions of General Sir Vincent Eyre, V.C,
that winter, that a memorial tablet was placed on the house in the;
Piazza di Spagna where Keats died.

Plans for Travel 179

December, 1875.

The railway being lately opened all the way,
we shall go, later on. Darby and Joaning to
Taranto, Rcggio, cross to Messina, Taormina,
Syracuse and back, then, alas ! perforce, by sea
to Palermo, then perhaps Girgenti and back to
Naples, Amalfi, Paestum, all unknown to me ; the
trip is an old longing of my gipsy heart — we shall
see if it can be carried out ; if only in part, it will
be delightful, and if not at all, one can hardly be
disappointed at my time of life ; the planning
will have been pleasant, at all events. Meanwhile,
I trot about as usual, long walks being my best
medicine, in Rome especially, for digestion, besides
forcing one out of oneself — that troublesome in-
truder ! I usually choose the hour of i p.m. as
quietest, when the tramways cease from troubling
and the tourists are at lunch. Excuse the parody,
which came out involuntarily ! I certainly intend
no irreverence.

The S. marriage is to take place at Christmas,
but only civil and Protestant, as Sigr. P. cannot
get the Catholic rite performed except at such a
price he cannot, or will not, pay it. How dis-
gustingly scandalous to me, as a Catholic, is all
this sale of Sacraments ; Judas did repent, nay
hang himself, but these people only follow his
example half-way, and enjoy the thirty pieces —
thirty times increased — Lord forgive them ! Do

i8o Clara Novello's Reminiscences

you know Miss Foley the sculptress ? interesting
as a woman and as a clever artist ; I rejoice
to tell you her exquisite fountain is to form the
centre ornament of the agricultural section of the
Philadelphia Exhibition. She has been in great
trouble over a pupil, whose nose has been all but
bitten off by a huge dog suffering from ulcers,
which the poor girl in caressing the beast inadver-
tently touched, ignoring he had any. The pain
was nothing to the agony of fright that the dog
might be mad ; however, a young Scotch lady,
accidentally present, a perfect heroine, at once
sucked the wound till the doctor arrived and
sewed on the nose, fortunately still hanging to
the face. The poor victim had actually tried, at
first, to burn and cauterise the wound by herself,
thereby only making the wound far more terrible
for the heroine who sucked away basins of blood —
rinsing her mouth with quite hot water between
whiles — and thus saved all danger to the poor
girl, even had the dog been mad, said the doctor
— at the risk of her own safety. Is it not a fine,
brave, action ?

The excavations in Rome now stop all passage
even on foot. The new Via Nazionale is also
progressing, Antonelli's house is down, and the
part of the Aldobrandini gardens which is to
come down already walled off. Old Tevere came
out of his bed lately, making the Pantheon stand
in a lake : he was as unwelcome as most

Sicily 1 8 1

over-frisky elderlies are, so wisely retreated after
reminding the talkers to do more towards improving
his proper place. Will they take the hint at the
Municipio ? I doubt it. I declare that geese
having once saved the Capitol, the Romans, out
of gratitude, have installed them there, defini-
tively !

1876

4th March, 1876.

(On return from Sicily). . . . We railed nine-
teen hours from lovely Taranto to Reggio, there
being no decent sleeping-place in between. What
a melancholy, desolate, waste region ! once so
exquisite, and might be so again if again cultivated.
Reggio is charming, and the view thence of Sicily
. . . magical ! We crossed to smiling Messina,
but once in Sicily two troubles began, which never
left us all the time we were there ; low, cloudy
weather, preventing any peep of Etna, and a
slight indisposition of mine. " Effetto del tempo,"
say my friends, to console me ; ay, but . . . del
tempo passato ! * At last, in Catania I called in
a doctor, a comical old German, who prescribed
some remedy, instructing me "to ead a liddle
bid of Mm ! " After Syracuse to Girgenti, mostly

* An untranslateable play on the word "tempo," which, like the
French "temps," signifies both time and weather.

1 82 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

by rail, but we drove also, four hours, where rail
does not meet, in the very heart of brigandage,
and had therefore a mounted escort. The won-
derful five Greek temples compensate infamous
lodging, eating and journey, nevertheless we were
delighted to find ourselves safe and sound back in
civilised Palermo. I being upset, ditto the weather,
we had to give up Taormina. Now I must leave off,
for the girls are musicating, and my thirsty soul
attends to them to the detriment of any sense in
this letter.

April, 1876.

. . . We have been concocting a plan concerning
you during friend John's absence ; if not too far
distant, would you not come to spend the time in
the Marche, with us, between Fermo — the old
cockloft — and San Benedetto on the sea ? We
would try to make you forget dullness, and as for
practising (on the piano) you can do so as much as
you feel inspired in both places ; there now, what
say you ? . . . the dates coincide comfortably
enough, you can substitute us for the convent,
and me for la Mere Superieure ! Lovely views
there are in plenty, and we will promise, also, not
to convert you ! ! . . . Those dear Marshes, besides
all their literary labours and arduous life in general,
have lately been hard at work hunting ! — yes,
I'm not mad — and caught a baby ! ! being all but
"in at the death," as the huntsmen say! This

A Monster 183

is how : an American lady of birth and wealth, has
a mania for obtaining children under the plea of
rearing them to honourable professions ; some
years ago a poor little girl of nine was rescued from
her torturings and placed in the orphanage in
Florence. Lately Dr. Nevin told the Marshes
that this same woman — she hardly merits the name
of woman ! — had a poor Swedish babe she — who
is sixty-seven ! — is rearing as a future courier for
herself, and ill-treating under the name of Spartan
education, that she had been turned out of several
hotels because the people could not stand the
cries of the child whom she starved, tied naked
to a chair, put to sleep on the brick floor, etc.
The police, the Marshes, and the Swedish minister,
after long labour rescued the poor little fellow,
who can just toddle and can't talk, and is appa-
rently about twenty months old. Surely such a
fury, if mad, should be kept where she cannot
torture more victims, and if bad, should be flogged
and fined ! I never saw a more touchingly lovely
sight than this tiny perched on Mr. Marsh's knee
while the latter played tricks to call smiles on the
pale tear-stained little face as he had caused
smiles to enter that miserable little life.

184 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

1877

March, 1877.

Sgambati has been so busy rearranging the
Accademia di Sta. CeciHa that he gave us no
concerts till the 15th. He played Beethoven's
" Appassionata " and his Concerto Op. ']Z^ divinely.
Me he satisfies more than any pianist I hear of
late, not only by his masterly playing but by his
quiet, which gives one a sense of repose and cer-
tainty. Those who seem to work so hard — like
a ship in a storm ! — trouble me. Art should oil
one's soul, as a friend of mine expressed it. Is
not music the only one of the Fine Arts admitted
into heaven ? Angels play and sing — who ever
hears of their painting or sculpturing ? ! The one
feeble attempt I made to sing this winter, was for
dear Mrs. T.'s birthday — quite a surprise to all,
to none more than myself.

Clara Novello speaks of a " feeble attempt," but her
voice, then and for many years after, was as powerful
and ringing as in her young days. In proof of this the
following appeared in an English paper in 1890 : " Miss
Fanny Davies writes from Rome : ' I must tell you of
a great treat we had the other day ; Clara Novello, now
Contessa Gigliucci, sang to us. Although seventy-one
years old she has still her wonderful voice — as clear as
a beU, and she sang as I never heard any one, " O rest
in the Lord," an air by Handel, and a charming little

Voice in Old Age 185

song by Veracini, with little shakes and trills all really
sung and not wobbled. It was a most artistic treat. Her
singing reminds me of Fran Schumann's playing.' "

In early womanhood a celebrated surgeon, examining
her throat, told her her singing powers would be unim-
paired at eighty, should she live to that age — a prediction
fulfilled to the letter. She sang for others, the last time,
when she was eighty-three, taking the first part in " Lift
thine eyes," and, save for a little huskiness once or twice,
the result of not having sung a note for over a year, her
voice was as steady and limpid as of old. But to the
very end, when she was verging on ninety, she would
sing to herself snatches of old tunes in a voice so marvel-
lously fresh and steady, it was an ever-recurring amaze-
ment to those around her. The unusual preservation
of her voice was doubtless owed in great measure to
never having strained it beyond its compass ; she avoided
music of an exhausting construction, and even sup-
pressed in her opera contracts such composers as she
judged to have written un- vocally.

The new quarters in Rome progress steadily,
so that you would hardly recognise the places ;
everywhere strings of endless carts make driving
a difficulty and an undertaking, and walking still
more so, to avoid being taken under — excuse stupid
attempt at a joke. Whop ! shout the drivers ;
but it is all very well to say hop ! to an old lady,
but not at all easy for her to execute ! As for
driving, the danger is nearly as great, especially as
I have at present what I call my tiro a quattro

1 86 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

(four in hand) two horses and . . . two donkeys,
on the seat ! Though why that intelhgent, much-
abused animal should represent a stupid mortal
I never could make out. I always think the
sobbing bray of a donkey is the pent-up misery,
bursting out at last, of centuries of ill-usage ! . . .
Story has built large studios near the Piazza dell'
Indipendenza, and Monteverde had done likewise.
I entered M.'s to see his monument to Bellini, in
Catania, which promises to be a grand thing. On
the pedestal are four statues, two female and two
male figures, representing respectively Norma,
Sonnambula, Pirata, and Puritani. I have per-
suaded him * to put for Norma Pasta's portrait,
for Sonnambula Malibran's, Tamburini for Puritani,
and Rubini for Pirata ; these great singers' faces
and persons represent excellently each character,
besides the operas having been written for them,
except indeed Malibran, but she made "Sonnam-
bula " her own, though wTitten for and first sung
by Pasta, whom it did not suit. ... I have been
able to lend him two portraits of Malibran, one a
watercolour by a friend, representing her in the
last scene of " Sonnambula " and given me at
Malibran's death — exactly like her.

All this week we dine early to attend the Tene-
brae service, in the Lateran, hearing the grand old
Psalms ! Alas ! they are spoiling the fine old

* He changed his mind, later.

Church Music 187

church — Heaven enhghten them in this and many
other more important Church matters. It was a
great disappointment when we returned to Rome
in 1871 to find all the Easter *' funzioni " had
been abolished, together with the divine " Mise-
rere " of Palestrina ; however, I had my wicked
little bit of revenge, for I asked one day a priest
in St. Peter's when the " Miserere" would be sung,
and he, looking very sour, answered, " Since
1870 there is no more ' Miserere.' " " Indeed,"
I said, looking innocently inquiring, "is it always
Te Deum, ever since ? " He looked astonished
I can tell you. There is a dreadful friar with a
fine loud voice, all are running after here. I was
induced to go one day, but such an indecent
bawling and shouting of music fit for a cafe
chantant I have seldom listened to ! out of tune
and time ! . . . I rushed out after the first piece.

Clara Novello's profoundly religious feeling caused
her to feel particularly indignant over profane music in
church, or profane rendering of sacred music. " I never
go to High Mass," she would say, " because it makes
me feel so irrehgious. I only pray for one thing the
whole time : that it may soon be over ! " When Miss
Muloch wrote that Clara Novello's singing of " I know
that my Redeemer liveth " is a declaration of faith, she
stated a literal truth. Clara's fervent religious belief was
one of her distinguishing characteristics, and she sang
sacred music emphatically to the honour and glory of
God, and indeed never raised her voice in song without

1 88 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

a feeling of intense and glad gratitude to Him for this
great gift ; she often said, in her whimsical way, " To be
well paid for doing what one loves beyond all things is
a piece of good fortune which falls to the lot of very few,
I think."

1878

Fermo, September, 187S.

All the world and his wife have been, or are
going, to the Paris Exhibition, but I own, all the
Exhibitions I've seen, have had the effect on me
of an over-piled plate of food set before one,
turning away appetite without satisfying. I have
no more the desire than I have the power to go
there — although a trip to Paris, aye and to London,
at its quietest, would be one of my dreams of
delight — and will remain such, doubtless. " No," is
the most important word to learn, and should be
constantly practised on ourselves. Women need
it most, and help themselves with it oftenest —
and if they do not, they often pay dearly, their
lives long !

We are spending a peaceful time here, occa-
sionally driving of an evening to the sea-side,
meeting some cousins there, and dining together
in the Stabilimento, then driving home by moon-
light — quite the best part of the entertainment.
I am never bored when alone and quiet ; some-
times, nay ofttimes, when in so-called places of
amusement (?) and in more promiscuous crowds
of people, miscalled society, how lonely and forlorn

Sgambati 189

I often feel — how longing to be off — safe out — and
at home !

1880

August, 1880.

That marvellous woman, dearest Mme. H.,
good as she is gifted, is hardly justified in dosing

one with 's music, however wrapped in the

compensating sweetness of her playing ; such
artisans are not artists, only good shoe and sausage
makers gone astray from their true vocations,
more's the pity, and it is a mistake to encourage
their delusions. ... I have felt almost like an
American about President Garfield (attempt on
his life). The interest I felt from the first has
increased daily by reading of the elevated simple
grandeur and heroic bearing up of the President
and his worthy helpmate. Such people console
one as a counterbalance to the mob of demi-
monde which jostles one, and which I call — under
my breath ! — the dammy-monde, or Italian im-
mondo !

To the " divine creature," alias Sgambati, all
sorts of tenderness from his enthusiastic old
admirer, also " saluti " to his handsome wife.
Fancy your playing whist with that clever old
worldling Liszt ! clever so many ways besides his
music, most of which seems more scientific than
delightful — to me at least. But why you, who are
never cross otherwise, will cross your writing, so

190 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

difficult, even when not crossed, and as paper is
not dear or difficult to be found, and Rowland
Hill — bless him ! — has bestowed on all an almost
unlimited weight for letters — is a mystery to me
and the only fault I know in you ! I trust you can
read my handwriting, always so wretched that as
a girl Rossini used to tell me, " When you cease to
write Chinese, I'll reply to you ! "

1884

Rome, January, 1884.

We are here. Darby and Joan, fairly well in
health. We came on the 2nd, as my husband is
on the committee for his province, for the honours
to be rendered to Victor Emanuel in the
Pantheon.

. . . Rome is being built and knocked down
out of all belief, proportion, and reason ; uncouth,
seven-storied, barrack-like buildings, of mean
lines and stucco smartness oppress one on all
sides. Adieu beauty, venerable trees, ruins and
distances, painted by the slanting yellow rays of
the setting sun ! Expensive ugliness seems the
aim in all things, nowadays, and this aim is, alas !
too often attained. Among the few compensations
two splendid bronze statues have been discovered
at the end of the Colonna gardens ; both are fine,
the seated one quite the most life-like statue I
ever saw.

Friends 191

Upon Story's dear old villa garden are now
crowded six or more tiny houses, or " Villini,"
which I call villainous ; these sort of mongrels
have, to my mind, all the inevitable inconveniences
of the country with all the drawbacks of a town,
and possess none of the many delights of either !
... Mrs. Grey and Miss Shirreff have remained
in London, as usual overdoing themselves to help
others, and as usual suffering therefrom.

Rome, April, 1884.

The authoress. Miss Muloch, now Mrs. Craik,
is here, and as I do not go out at present, has
kindly come to see me, and charmed me almost
as much as her lovely books. Mrs. B. also came
one evening, bringing three friends of hers to be
introduced to me. I suppose, coming to this city
of antiquities, they think it their duty to visit all
the ruins ! Dear Mrs. Marsh writes describing her
home and life in Scarsdale in words worthy her
perfect self, adding in compendious simplicity,
' ' and am as happy as I could be anywhere in this
world." * How pathetically true ! I consider it
one of the highest privileges of my life to have
known such a creature, virtue so attractive.
American women appear to me to have two
special virtues, which might be boasted of almost
as national : self-control and cheerfulness under

* She had lost her husband in 18S2.

192 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

trials, " brightness," as they truly denominate it,
and what delightful practical helps are both these
in life's inevitable trials ! I agree with some
bishop's opinion that temper is nine-tenths of
Christianity ! I have always thought that after
good principles ranks good temper — in a husband,
for instance.

Fermo, September, 1884.

. . . We still talk of going to the Turin Exhibi-
tion, but hesitate to encounter, not cholera but the
in-sane, so-called sanitary precautions which harass
one on all sides ; the follies executed by these
panic-struck small " Comuni," where idleness causes
any sensation to be welcome, even of agonies of
fright, pass all belief ! The present state of
idiotic panic reminds me of the sailor's reply to
the inquiry, " Is there any fear ? " " Plenty of fear,
but no danger ! ' ' Should any single even suspicious
case arise in Turin during our stay, these jack-in-
ofhce tom-fools here might prevent our returning
home. It would be laughable were it not irritating
to see the arbitrary follies committed ; thus
certain fruits and vegetables are permitted to
enter the town, others not; now they'll shut the
town gates, next leave them open, or open the
small postern only, as if cholera were some large
animal unable to force entrance through such !
I do deepl}' pity the beloved S.'s who suffer such
terrible fright ; yet surely we are now, as always,
in God's hands ! we must die once ! and it becomes

A Love-Match 193

almost suicide thus uselessly to afflict oneself
beforehand, and which moreover induces the first
symptoms of the very evil so dreaded. Nothing
in the world is so certain as death, yet nothing in
the world so uncertain !

1885

February, 1885.

Of course you have heard about N. M.'s engage-
ment to marry *' the richest man in Denmark."
I consider him to have become such since securing
such a sweet piece of perfection for a wife, and
have taken a high estimate of the man since hearing
that, by the laws of his country he forfeits a portion
of his property by marrying a foreigner. Surely
what remains will suffice them for happiness, nor
could he have purchased with what he renounces
more lasting happiness. To me it is sad to
witness the surprise caused among the young 7ne)i
by this proof of love, so natural to my mind,
whereas few are surprised or shocked at the daily
ruin of men, married or single, through vices or
vicious companionship. Dear, lovely N. seems
sweetly satisfied as a girl ought to be, and says
but little, as is right and fitting on such an occasion.
The G. marriage is quite another affair, one
instance more of what I maintain, that married
men are divided into two categories, those who
marry, and those who are married — this last by

o

194 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

far the most numerous ! I've lately been invited
to inspect trousseau and gifts for a bridal, but
cannot admire such exhibitions. I should not
care to wear dresses seen, examined, and criticised
in every detail, and underclothes so exposed seem
to me indecent as well as ludicrous, as if to prove
one had such things, otherwise doubtful !

The monument to Victor Emanuel will be a
so-to-say taking possession of Rome, and the
young architect Sacconi * has revealed himself a
genius with the Greek elegance of his designs ; he
has the true artistic gift from heaven which may,
nay must, be cultivated, but cannot be acquired
if not bestowed by the Creator. The last work of
Sacconi is the tomb of the Comtesse de Thomar,
a marvel of simple beauty . . . and stands out
among the neighbouring throng of vulgarities f
which always impress me with the strong desire
to have none raised over me !

May, 1885.

Sgambati's Symphony is splendid, so much so
that I have written to London, hoping to induce
some one to produce it there, at once. After his
concert the " divine creature " dedicated himself,
time, soul, and health, to getting up Gounod's
" Redemption." We attended the so-called re-
hearsals, but to see his sweet gentle ways rubbed

* Native of Fermo.

t In the cemetery, Campo Verano.

Gounod's "Redemption" 195

against a herd of non-bred vulgarians, without
discipHne as to punctuality in coming, or decent
silence when in place, inattentive to his repeated
orders and entreaties, was a real distress to me.
P., who sang in the amateur chorus, was often on
the point of leaving, so troubled was she to form
part of such a set of wild buffaloes ! The per-
formance was in the Sala Costanzi — on account
of the new organ erected there — but it was a mis-
take, I think, the " sala " being much too small
for the effects of the music, which I can only
describe as a life-size portrait placed within half
a yard of one's eyes. The King and Queen attended
and the room was crowded, but the natural
consequence of too few and ill-attended rehearsals
was painfully evident. The real reason, however,
why the " Redemption " was found wearying and
endless is its want of solo pieces, songs, duetts,
and trios. The one song sung by Donadio is
the reverse of sacred, and instead of relieving the
awe and severity of the whole subject, seems to
clash against it. The King sat it out with the
heroism to duty which is his own ! The intense
heat made it difficult for many to follow his example
though loving music as much as he dislikes it —
true son of Casa Savoja. The fiasco was so
absolute that no effort to repeat it was successful,
and I fear this hurt much the dear " D. C." after
his endless Quixotic sacrifices of lessons, parties,
and other lucrative professional engagements.

196 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

1886

March, 1886.

Lady Louisa L. has had the capital original
notion of a reception-tea in the lovely, little-known,
small Villa Chigi beyond Porta Salaria. A tire-
some drizzle, now and then, spoilt an otherwise
charming fete, though the exquisite view was
perhaps enhanced in beauty by the ever-varying
clouds and the storms of slanting rain on the
distant snow-capped mountains. I declared some
British climate had been imported for the fete
by that sweet-tempered most amiable Lady Louisa,
our kind hostess, who bore it all with her usual
laughing good humour. The present state of the
roads there made the journey, however short,
not imperilous, to the carriage if not to those
inside it ; Villa Albani still remains as a landmark,
otherwise distracting sets of buildings, irregular
in size and in every other way, huddle all around
as if rushing off from somewhere, half-finished, to
somewhere — anywhere — else ! Years may settle
them into streets, if they don't tumble down
previous to termination.*

We have revelled in three hearings of " Hugue-
nots," Meyerbeer's finest opera. M., the tenor,
merits in this opera the high favour he won from
others, here, in " Puritani " and " Lucia " ; in these
he never pleased or satisfied me ; one heard, saw,

* Which was precisely the case with many of them.

Sgambati 197

and felt the late carpenter he had been and had
not ceased to be, alas ! But " Raoul " abso-
lutely transfigures him, he moves, acts the elegant
man, sings with heart as well as art, without
which all art is incomplete. Thus the . . . though
I fully recognise her w^onderful art, never touched
me ; elle chante mais elle n'enchante pas — not
me, at least. . . . This week we pass most afternoons
in the Lateran, to hear the fine Tenebrae service ;
alas, Palestrina's unsurpassable music is too often
substituted by present presumptuous moderns and
their compositions, so utterly inadequate as to
make it feel quite a sacrilege. Oh vanity and envy !
ye roots of all earth's sorrow and evil great and
small ; these were the fatal apple Eve gave to
Adam, and of which he partook the biggest share,
turning the blame upon her ! — as ever since has
been the case.

Sgambati's last concert was crowded ; his
rendering of Beethoven's Concerto, op. 73, was
simply sublime, and once more confirms my feeling
that no pianist can compare with him for a moment ;
he is just perfect, no more and no less. Thank
you warmly for the kind thought of posting me
the paper about General G., although I care very
little for that piece of pomposity ; as to his
hideous wife she used to seem to me a specimen
sent to prove that America can produce the
extreme of ugliness in the same perfection as the
extreme of beauty, of which latter she sends forth

198 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

such profusion. Mrs. G. might counterbalance at
least a thousand !

Fermo, May, 1886.

Dear friends, here is the full, true and particular
account of our journey home. We three women-
folk left Rome on the loth for Perugia, next day
we drove to Assisi, visited S. Maria, S. Francesco,
and then the convent of Sta. Chiara, where the
abbess is a connection of ours. She had her
church treasures illuminated for us, offered us
refreshments, medals, etc., and seemed as pleased
to see us as we were charmed with her. She even
lifted her thick black veil " because we are
cousins," she explained,* but remained on the
other side of the wall, more than a yard thick,
speaking to us through the opening, a sort of
tunnel. Fancy her telling us that her church of
Sta. Chiara was once covered by frescoes and
paintings of the great masters Giotto, Giottino,
and others, but a bishop — Lord forgive his teme-
rity of ignorance ! — had them hacked out, because
they, and those who came to see them, were a
distracting element to the nuns ! So much for his
reverence of the Popes and Bishops who had had
these exquisite works executed. Driving back to
Perugia we inspected the Etruscan tombs of the
Volumni and reached Perugia at seven, after a
most enchanting drive, ever to me the one perfect

* The Clares are strictly cloistered nuns.

Perugia 199

way of travelling. In my time — as all old people
say — travelling was transport, now it has become
transportation ! shot through from one place to
another like a parcel, underground in beautiful
mountain scenery, above where it is flat and un-
interesting. Rossini, also of my way of thinking,
used to say, " Ah, Clara mia, what a fortune that
man will make, who, fifty years hence will invent
' diligences ' ! " To return to Perugia, the Grand
Hotel Brufani there is perfect in situation, views
and all else. We worked hard sight-seeing on foot
and driving, and managed to see an enormous
quantity in our two days, but to see everything
at all well would require months ; the multitude
alone is bewildering. — We reached Porto S. Giorgio
Thursday morning, where my gallant husband was
waiting at the station to receive and drive us
home. These first days are very busy, besides the
coming elections which bring us both our sons as
well as lots of cousins ; so we gain, whoever be
elected. The very last days in Rome I went to
inquire after dear Mrs. H. — still slight fever ; I
always tremble when the good are ill, the bad are
sure to recover — the Old Gentleman being in no
hurry to add to his number, I fancy ! — I hear that
friars have purchased Palazzo Altemps as well as
Hotel Costanzi, besides erecting magnificent new
convents all over the new quarters of Rome.
Their poverty, so loudly deplored, seems singularly
different to usual poverty ! We keep well although

200 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

the constant inconstancy of the weather is trying.
I keep adding shawl upon shawl and as quickly
shedding them, one after the other — peeling like
an onion. . . .

Fermo, August, 1886.

My sisters, Mrs. Cowden Clarke and Sabilla,
left Genoa at the end of June for Switzerland, and
later Bayreuth, to receive here a three days' dose
of Wagner's "Parsifal," etc., as substitute for music.
I don't envy them ; Louis of Bavaria's end shows
what sort of madman it was who proclaimed
Wagner a musician — also the effects of Wag-
nerism ! ! . . . Our pretty little theatre here, with
its lovely ceiling painted by Cochetti, opened last
night with a small opera, " Le Villi," by a young
beginner, Puccini, who has imitated Wagner ; a
sequence of intricate harmonies without a trace
of melody or inspiration, which might never end
. . . and never begin ! This substitute for music
is now the mode and consoles me for being old.
When I was young, music was music indeed, and
" oiled one's soul " ; now, what is imposed on one,
instead, turns me into a Barbary hen, ruffling all
my feathers up the wrong way ! After the " Villi "
we had " Traviata," both sung by a Miss J. of Cin-
cinnati ; lovely in face and person, but singing
in the palsied fashion and from her tonsils, not
from her chest. Palsy has invaded all the arts,
not only in singing ; painting is all blotches and
smears, orchestra pieces are written all tremolo . . . !

Liszt 201

So that very clever old Liszt is dead ! You
know what Rossini was found doing with his
" Pater Noster," which was upside down on his
pianoforte desk ? To inquiries, Why so ? he
replied, " I've been trying till now to make
something of it right side up — in vain, so I'm now
going to try this way."

I wish I had known the S.'s were going to
America and would see you ; I should have begged
them to take kind charge of a little parcel. I know
not of any mode of conveyance like the " pacco
postale," which nowadays renders sending trifles
so temptingly easy ; if you could indicate me such
I should be so glad. America seems to me
terribly hke having friends in the moon, though
you dear Americans run over and back as if next
door.

October, iS86.

A book has lately appeared, in English, pur-
porting to depict the manners and customs of this
part of the Marche, and the Times, during an off
season, honours it by a two-column article with
quotations ; but honours are often onerous, and
the article has caused many protests, and its
quotations, translated, have produced here much
natural indignation. I call the book " sour fibs " !
such a sequence of false statements is its only
originality, and the author contradicts each in
turn after a few lines. Had she wished to vent

202 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

her discontent she might have written truths, for
this, hke all other parts of the earth, does not lack
what might be mended, but abuse of all and every-
thing gives offence, and shows a sad incapacity of
perception of all and any beauty in things
surrounding, while sharp as vinegar to faults
imaginary or real. It requires so little talent
to see these, whereas for some eyes there is
" good in everything," as Shakespeare says,
reflecting his own mind on all he beheld ; like
the moon, that beautifier of all she touches,
veiling, hiding, almost beautifying what is ugly
and prosaic. Fancy the authoress disliking our
peasant songs ! " the long-held-out note in dis-
cordant voices sounds more like the howl of wild
beasts than human \ " of dancing, she wonders
why they do it, or sing the while as it adds to
their fatigue ; *' the eternal saltarello, the man
seems to fall backward, the woman forwards." . . .
Tosti was so inspired b}^ these same songs, that
his " Pensa " was the result, and I, when a belated
ox-cart driver keeps himself awake singing them,
listen entranced, feeling he has completed the
harmony of the star-lit summer night — its hum
of silence, if I may so call it. As for the " saltarello "
it resembles a ball of gnats in a sunbeam — I had
to learn it when I was a bride ! Its origin must
be as old as anything known ; its tee-to-tum-like
whirl symbolises that oldest yet freshest of all
things ; love's pursuit and retreat.

Germany 203

In 1888 Clara Novello, together with her husband and
daughters, went to Germany, and whilst the former made
the cure in Ems, she, quite alone, visited in turn Niiremberg,
Regensburg, Frankfurt, etc. It was in Augsburg that
she received, from the hotel chambermaid, a droll com-
pliment which proves how unusually young-looking she was
for her years — turned seventy. Entering into conversa-
tion with the woman, to exercise her German according
to her practical habit, some remark caused her to ask,
" How old do you think I am ? " The woman delibe-
rately took stock of her, and inquired, " Are your teeth
your own ? " " Yes," said Clara. " Do you dye your
hair ? " " No," was the answer. " Na . . . gute
fiinfzig ! " concluded the woman (fifty, well turned).
Which, though ever after a standing joke in the family,
represented precisely Clara Novello's real age at that
time.

In 1889 my husband was created Senator, his
hand being forced in the matter, for, apprised of
his nomination when the decree bore already the
Royal signature, he could no longer decline this
long-due honour. What most intrigue to obtain
he had several times evaded through over-modesty
and strained feelings of delicacy, his only faults
through a long and nobly pure life. . When he
began telling me with a *' You will be more pleased
than I am "... I guessed at once, and replied,
" Better late than never ! " Curiously enough
these were the very words which greeted him at
the Senate from a large number of colleagues and

204 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

old friends ; all those who knew him loved and
esteemed him highly. . . .

Never did he look or seem better than in
January, 1893. Alas, the facts did not corre-
spond. . . .

Count Gigliucci died on the 29th of March, " the
Senate abstaining, by his express desire, from its due
attendance and honours."

At the end of May I returned to Fermo, by
way of Florence, to visit my sons and their families.
On the 24th of June, S. Giovanni, my husband's
fete-day, his only sister, Superior of the Convit-
trici convent, had a fainting-fit, we were told, but
in a few hours she passed away peacefully. How
I envied, and do envy her ! God's will be done !

Here Clara Novello's reminiscences abruptly cease —
a break typical of her life, which in one sense may be said
to have come to a close at the same time. Serene and
bright she remained to the end, active and fairly energetic,
but it was only through those she loved that from that
time forward she continued to take any particular
interest in events, great or small ; for herself she ceased
to care much for anything. Her strong will, unimpaired by
age, she deliberately abdicated into the hands of the
younger generation. " I prefer to do as the others wish,"
she would say, and it was plain that beyond the exceeding
unselfishness natural in her, a sort of moral heart failure
set in when bereaved of the companion of a nearly fifty
years' ideally happy union.

An insatiable and most eclectic reader, she dearly

Deafness 205

liked to be read to when her sight began to grow dim, and
she was an admirable listener, never for an instant letting
her mind wander ; but her consideration for others was
such that she never asked to be read to, always waiting
till it should be proposed.

In Rome she received every evening friends who
dropped in to see her, Italian-fashion, on a general invita-
tion only, and her alert walk and carriage, the ring and
steadiness of her voice, and the vigour and clearness of
her mind were a constant marvel to them all. Good,
general conversation she considered one of the highest
intellectual enjoyments, and it was therefore a keen loss
and sorrow to her when her hearing grew a little hard
and debarred her from it. Unlike most people troubled
with that infirmity, she was never known to ask for a
repetition of what caused merriment around her. " It is
a great bore to have to repeat to a deaf person," she
would say. " I see you are enjoying yourselves, which
makes me very happy, and I dare say you will tell me
about it later." A most rare forbearance.

All her life she was the recipient of confidences which,
far from being sought, caused her often some impatience.
" Why should people expect me to keep their secrets
better than they can for themselves ? " Perhaps people
felt instinctively that she was one of the desirable few
who have no connection whatever with King Midas' wife
— a " non-conductor of the heats and animosities of
society," and with the necessity inherent in some to
disburden themselves of what they know, they chose her as
their safety-valve who carried out in herself her own oft-
repeated injunction : " Remember, you have two ears and
only one tongue."

2o6 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

She says of herself (p. 171), " I, never ambitious for
myself . . . "; but this simple statement is wholly inade-
quate to depict her as she really was ; the negation of
vanity or ambition of any kind whatsoever, personal,
social or professional. When preparing to appear in
public, she dressed with elegance and even splendour —
" out of respect to the public," but in private it was only
her love of neatness, her " talent pour I'ordre," as Mme.
Tardieu expressed it, which prevented her indifference to
dress degenerating into neglect ; "I cover myself, I don't
dress," she would say. This carelessness to personal
appearance was due to her Italian blood — as her French
dressmaker once declared, with professional disgust :
" les Italiennes ne savent ni cacher un defaut ni faire
valoir une beaute." Passionately fond of the country,
she had lived many months off and on, during the first
years of her marriage, in IMartin Sicuro — a small country
place she took delight in, unfinished and primitive though
it was — when a friend came to stay with them, and on
his requesting a looking-glass to shave by, it was only then
discovered that such a thing did not exist in the house,
even in the mistress's own room.

During life she made many precious friendships in
high places, but they were almost forced upon her. " Ursa
Major," as she styled herself, she avoided rather than
sought new acquaintances, intentionally disregarding the
facilities which her husband's political position afforded —
besides those derived from her own station — for mixing in
brilliant circles. She carried these stay-at-home tendencies
at times almost beyond the limits of social etiquette.

In her profession she dedicated herself scrupulously
to its duties, often to the detriment of health and comfort,

Unworldliness 207

" not to disappoint the public " ; but the duties once ful-
filled, she never gave a thought to the effect she created,
never read a paper on account of its mention of her, far
less subscribed to such papers. In early youth, in Italy,
Micheroux advised her to subscribe to certain papers,
" for things go thus," he told her : " if you pay the papers,
they will praise you in proportion to the amount you pay ;
if you only subscribe they will not mention you, one way
or the other ; if you do not subscribe, they will tear you
to pieces and perhaps cause you some annoyance." Ever
open to reason, she consented to subscribe, on condition
she should not be expected to read the papers ! and when
these accumulated, " to put them to some use," she amused
herself cutting out the charades, which were then expedited
by a friend to the officers garrisoned in the forts around
Genoa, who received them as a boon which enlivened
their exile.

Visiting a prison one day, in Italy, she was painfully
impressed by the wild expression " as of a chained eagle "
of a young man confined there, and learnt he was an
officer imprisoned for a debt of few hundreds of francs.
Impelled by deep pity she discharged the debt, through
a friend, first putting him on his oath never to reveal to
any one, least of all to the prisoner, the name of his
liberator ; she was well aware that such an act, from a
young girl towards a young man, would most probably
have been attributed to sentimental causes, wholly foreign
to it in reality. She was much tickled, and her friend
highly incensed, when the officer, recovering his liberty
and attending the theatre, not only did not join in the
general enthusiasm over her but spoke slightingly of her
singing, her looks and everything about her !

2o8 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

She was all her life very skilful with her fingers, under-
taking colossal pieces of work, dresses, shawls, bedcovers,
beautifully embroidered, macrame lace with which she
trimmed dozens of towels, brackets, and the like, and
pillow lace, learnt during her- short visits to the Valle
d'Aosta, of which it is one of the industries. When her
sight was still excellent, she decided to prepare for the
time when it should be no longer so. "I must invent
some sort of old woman's work, in case I should live to
be old. I should go wild if I had to sit with my hands in
my lap ! " So she elaborated a crocheted vest for the
babies of the poor, of which she made many thousands,
working indefatigably at them even when receiving friends.
She distributed them impartially in Fermo, where she
spent the summers, and in Rome where she wintered,
bestowing always two vests on each baby to encourage
frequent washing of the little garment ! It was with heavy
hearts and forebodings that those around her noticed one
day that the crochet and unfinished " maglietta " were
lying in the basket beside her, while her hands were lying
idly in her lap — just one month before the end.

Of death she had no fear, but a great dread of dying ;
the possible gasping for breath, to her who lived to the
last in a very whirlwind of fresh outer air, was an uneasy
preoccupation. She was spared what she had feared ;
at the end of February she took influenza, and on the 12th
of March, 1908, she passed away so peacefully that it was
truly falling asleep.

She had often expressed her desire to be laid by the
side of her " better half," " but only in case I die in Rome,"
she would add. " I do not approve carrying about dead
bodies ; where the fruit falls, there let it lie." As she

Death 209

desired so it was done ; the first four words inscribed on
the marble being dictated by herself, more than once,
after 1893. The last line was added to commemorate
her connection with music, her love of Handel and pre-
ference for that song above all his other compositions,
and for its fitness in reference to her perfect married life.

E SUA MOGLIE CLARA

FiGLiA Di VINCENZO NOVELLO

Nata a Londra, 10 Giugno, 1818.

Morta a Roma, 12 Marzo, 1908.

" In sweetest harmony they lived."

"Saul" (Handel).

LETTERS

LETTERS

London, January', 1857.

My dear Madam Clara,

Accept my warm thanks for the very delightful
manner in which you have responded to my wish. Should
you now write to Madame Viardot to try the Durante
duetts with you, you must tell her that I am the friend of
Berlioz and introduced him into England, which is true.
She will probably remember me ; I was in the box at the
Opera with her, M. Viardot and M. Schoelcher on the
night of the first performance of " Benvenuto Cellini,"
which you know is Berlioz's opera. She said to me,
" Don't you think, sir, it is very wTong to hiss an opera
like this ? " I could hardly reply to her from vexation ;
to see the generous work of Berlioz so crushed, the labour
of months and years destroyed, in a few hours, quite over-
powered me.

At first it may be best for us to be alone, but that is
as you like. I know such a number of great people that
I am afraid of no one, and if I have the honour to accom-
pany you I don't see why not Madame Viardot, My love
of music would render it very delightful and indeed a
perfect romance, to hear these sublime compositions
performed in private and for the first time by two such
great artists. The Duos for soprano and contralto are
composed on themes from the works of the great Alessandro

214 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

Scarlatti, and are a tribute of love to him by Durante,
his pupil. They exhaust all the dramatic accents of
tenderness, affection, despair in their recitative, of which
the modulation has never been equalled, and the song
parts, with which they end, are always fugued in the
most expressive manner. Oh, glorious Italy ! the great
country of music, and the first in inextinguishable love
for it. On Tuesday, at seven, I shall come to you with
the book, trusting that in introducing it to you I may
perform a service to you. . . .

Yours truly,

Edward Holmes.

Translated from the Italian.

Florence, 17th January, 1869.

Dear Contessa,

Please read the accompanying letter and kindly
tell me, in two words, if I am right in my opinion that
this debut for Anna * is advantageous, and if, in accepting
this proposal, it is necessary to state what songs she intends
singing, and if you think it advisable to choose one of
Handel. ... Is not Lotti's air too trifling for such a
concert ? What terms should I use, to accept a I'Anglaise ?
You see how ignorant I am ! In speaking to you I feel
like praying. Madonna, help me ! Kindly do so, for it
is your doing if my heart has been drawn by your rare
goodness.

Yours ever,

Carolina Sabatier Unger.

* Her niece, Mile. Regan, later Mme. Schimon.

Letters 215

Rome (?), 24th April, 1S74.

My dear Madame,

Permit me to thank you for the information
you send me respecting the poem of Emanuel di Salomone,
of the family of the Sifronitides, It may be inferred
from the price that my Hebrew friend has treated heaven
and hell in a more summary manner than the great
Italian poet. . . .

Yours very sincerely,

T, A. Trollope.

London, 17th January, 1843.

Dear Gibson,

You are always so much gratified at the extension
of British fame in Italy, that I am sure you will be well
pleased at the introduction of Miss Clara Novello, who
has earned great fame in the very land of song. Pray
show her your beautiful works — which have also estab-
lished English fame in the sister art of sculpture, and any
other attentions as regards the fine things in Rome you
may be able to favour her with, I shall be very glad of.
I imagine she inherits a love of the fine arts from her
accomplished father, who is one of my oldest and dearest
friends. I cannot say I have not the honour of knowing
personally this distinguished young lady, but it was only
in her infancy, before I went to Italy, and I now envy you
the pleasure of hearing her sing, but I trust it may not
be long before I hear her in her native land, to be able to
tell her how I rejoice at the power and success of her gains
in bearing away a musical palm from Italy.

You will be glad to hear a favourable report of the

2i6 Clara Novello's Reminiscences

historical fresco-painting, that is, the public has taken
it up warmly, though the artists are still lukewarm. I
hear of a fine thought you are realising for an Aurora. . . .
Your much obliged friend,

Jos. Severn.

P.S. — I hear to-day that the Greek marbles from
Asia Minor are partly to be seen in the British Museum,
and will, in my next, write you about them.

THE END

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND UECCLES.

Telegrams: ^ ^, ^.^.j ^^ Maddox Street,

' Scholarly, London. •> > c r j ^X7

r>ond Street, London, vV.
Telephone : ., ,

No. 1883 Mayfair. November, 1910.

Mr. Edward Arnold's

LIST OF NEW BOOKS,

1910.

THE LIFE OF THE RIGHT HON.
CECIL JOHN RHODES,

1853— 1902.

By the Hon. Sir LEWIS MICHELL,

Member of the Executive Council, Gate Colony.

Two Volumes. With Illustrations. Demy Svo., 30s. net.

This important work will take rank as the standard biography
of one of the greatest of modern Englishmen. Sir Lewis Michell,
who has been engaged on the work for five years, is an executor of
Mr. Rhodes's will and a Trustee of the Rhodes Estate. He was
an intimate personal friend of Mr. Rhodes for many years, and has
had access to all the papers at Groote Schuur. Hitherto, although
many partial appreciations of the great man have been published in
the Press or in small volumes, no complete and well-informed life of
him has appeared. The gap has now been filled by Sir Lewis
Michell so thoroughly that we have in these two volumes what will
undoubtedly be the final estimate of Mr. Rhodes's career for many
years to come. The author, although naturally in sympathy with
his subject, writes with independence and discernment on the many
critical questions of the time ; his narrative is very lucid and very
interesting, and the reader is made to feel the dominating personality
of Mr, Rhodes in every phase of South African history and develop-
ment. It is no small tribute to the book to say that, after reading
it, even those who never met Mr. Rhodes can well understand the
magic influence he seemed to exert upon all who came in contact
with him in his life-time.

LONDON : EDWARD ARNOLD, 41 ^c 43 MADDOX STREET, W.

2 Mr. Edward Arnold'' s Autumn Announcements.

THE REMINISCENCES OF ADMIRAL
MONTAGU.

With Illustrations. One Volume. Demy 8vo., cloth. 15s. net.

The Author of this entertaining book, Admiral the Hon. Victor
Montagu, has passed a long life divided between the amusements
of aristocratic society in this country and the duties of naval
service afloat in many parts of the world. His memory recalls
many anecdotes of well-known men — among them the famous
' Waterloo ' Marquis of Anglesey, who was his grandfather, Lord
Sydney, Sir Harry Keppel, Sir Edmund Lyons, Hobart Pasha,
and others. Admiral Montagu is a distinguished yachtsman,
and a well-known figure at Cowes, which forms the scene of some
extremely interesting episodes. He was honoured with the
personal friendship of the late King Edward VH. and of the
German Emperor, by whom his seamanship, as well as his social
qualities, was highly esteemed. As a sportsman he has some-
thing to say about shooting, fishing, hunting, and cricket, and his
stories of life in the great country houses where he was a frequent
guest have a flavour of their own. The Admiral had no love for
'the City,' and his denunciation of the pitfalls that await amateur
'children in finance' will have many sympathizers. He is a type
of the real British sailor, and is at his best in recording naval
exploits and adventures, of which a goodly number fell to his lot.

CLARA NOVELLO'S REMINISCENCES.

With an Introductory Memoir by
ARTHUR DUKE COLERIDGE.

Illustrated. One Volume. Demy 8vo. los. 6d. net.

The forthcoming Reminiscences of Clara Novello were compiled by
her daughter, Contessa Valeria Gigliucci, from the great singer's manu-
script notes. They give charmingly vivid pictures of her early life, when
Charles Lamb and all manner of distinguished literary and musical
people were frequent guests at her father's house. After her mar-
riage with Count Gigliucci she lived in Italy, and there are various
interesting side-lights on the stirring times of the Risorgimento and
the unification of the kingdom of Italy.

The reminiscences are written in a pleasant, talkative style, with-
out any great literary pretensions, and are marked by singular
modesty and refinement. As the writer takes it for granted that the
surroundings of music in her day are familiar to all her readers, it

Mr. Edward Arnold's Autumn Announcements. 3

has been thought expedient to supplement her memories by an
introductory memoir by Mr. Arthur Duke Coleridge, who, as a youn,"-
amateur tenor, had the honour of singing with Clara Novello on
several occasions. He tells us of what oratorios were like at
Exeter Hall in the days of Lindley and Dragonetti ; and describes
the singing of Clara Novello herself for those who never had the
luck to hear her. A little-known poem of Lamb is included in
the volume, which contains also several portraits of the singer and
her relations.

HUGH OAKELEY ARNOLD-FORSTER.

% /li^emoir.

By HIS WIFE.
With Portraits and other Illustrations. Demy Svo., cloth. 15s. net.

It happens but rarely that the wife of a public man is in a position
to write a memoir of him, but if it be true that an autobiography is
the most interesting of all records of a career, surely that which
comes nearest to it is the memoir written by a wife in close sympathy
with the aims and ideals, the difficulties and triumphs of her
husband. Mr. Arnold-Forster's father, William Delafield Arnold
(a son of Dr. Thomas Arnold, Headmaster of Rugby), having died
while he was still a child, he was adopted by the Right Hon. W. E.
Forster, his uncle by marriage. He was educated at Rugby and
University College, Oxford, where he took a First-Class in Modern
History. He was afterwards called to the Bar, but soon became
immersed in political life. During the stormy years of 1880- 1882
he was private secretary to Mr. W. E. Forster, then Chief Secretary
for Ireland, and shared all the difficulties and dangers due to the
disturbed state of the country. Mr. Arnold-Forster entered Parlia-
ment as Member for West Belfast in 1892, and represented that con-
stituency for thirteen years. In igo6 he was elected for Croydon, for
which he continued to sit until his death in 1909. His first official
appointment was as Chairman of the Land Settlement Commission
sent to South Africa in igoo. While there he received the offer of
the Secretaryship to the Admiralty, and held the post until 1903.
He then became Secretary of State for War at a critical period in
the history of Army reorganization, and went out of office on the fall
of the Unionist Government in 1905.

This memoir is extremely interesting throughout from a political
standpoint. It will also enable the reader to appreciate the universal
respect felt for Mr. Arnold-Forster's high motives and strong prin-
ciples in Parliament, and the warm affection for him cherished bv
all who had the privilege of knowing him in private life.

4 Mr. Edward Arnold's Autumn Announcements.

UNEXPLORED SPAIN.

By ABEL CHAPMAN,

Author of ' Wild Nokway,' etc..

And WALTER J. BUCK,

British Vice-Consul at Jerez.

With 200 Illustrations by the AUTHOR, E. CALDWELL, and others,
and Photographs.

Super Royal Svo. 21s. net.

In Europe Spain is certainly far and away the wildest of wild
lands — due as much to her physical formation as to any historic or
racial causes. Whatever the precise reason, the fact remains that
wellnigh one-half of Spain to-day lies wholly waste and barren —
abandoned to wild beasts and wild birds. Naturally the Spanish
fauna remains one of the richest and most varied in Europe.

It is of these wild regions and of their wild inhabitants that the
authors write, backed by lifelong experience. Spain, in this sense,
is virgin ground, unoccupied save by our authors themselves. Their
'Wild Spain,' written in 1892, was widely appreciated, and for
many years past has commanded a fancy price.

The present work represents nearly forty years of constant study, of
practical experience in field and forest, combined with systematic
note-taking and analysis by men who are recognised as specialists in
their selected pursuits. These comprise every branch of sport with
rod, gun, and rifle ; and, beyond all that, the ability to elaborate the
results in the light of modern zoological science.

The illustrations have been prepared from life-sketches made upon
the spot, and include many studies of the rarer or vanishing forms
of animal life, as well as some photographs by H.R.H. Philippe,
Duke of Orleans.

FOREST LIFE AND SPORT IN INDIA

By SAINTHILL EARDLEY-WILMOT, CLE.,

Lately Inspector-General op Forests to the Indian Government ; Commissioner
under the development and road improvement funds act.

With Illustrations from Photographs by MABEL EARDLEY-WILMOT.
Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.

The Author of this volume was appointed to the Indian Forest
Service in days when the Indian Mutiny was fresh in the minds of
his companions, and life in the department full of hardships, loneli-
ness, and discomfort. These drawbacks, however, were largely
compensated for by the splendid opportunities for sport of all kinds
which almost every station in the Service offered, and it is in
describing the pursuit of game that the most exciting episodes of the
book are to be found. What Mr. Eardley-Wilmot does not know
about tiger-shooting cannot be worth knowing, for in addition to
having bagged several score, he has many a time watched them

Mr. Edward Arnold's Autumn Announcements. 5

without intention of firing at them. Spotted deer, wild buffaloes,
mountain goats, sambhar, bears, and panthers, are the subject of
endless yarns, in the relation of which innumerable useful hints,
often the result of failure and even disasters, are given. The author,
moreover, from the nature of his calling, is deeply impregnated with
the natural history and love of the forests and their inhabitants — in
fact, he possesses the power of holding up a mirror, as it were, in
which his reader can observe the whole life of the forest reflected.

Of his professional life the author gives some most interesting
particulars, and reveals to the uninitiated what a many-sided career
is that of a Conservator of Indian Forests, whose life is spent in
assisting Nature to yield her harvest of woody growth.

IN FORBIDDEN SEAS,

IRccoUectloi'.e of Seas©ttec ibunttng {\\ tbc 1Rur(ls.
By H. J. SNOW, F.R.G.S.,

Author of ' Notes on the Kuril Islanos."

Ilhistrated. Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.

The Author of this interesting book has had an experience probably
unique in an almost unknown part of the world. The stormy wind-
swept and fog-bound regions of the Kuril Islands, between Japan
and Kamchatka, have rarely been visited save by the adventurous
hunters of the sea-otter, and the animal is now becoming so scarce
that the hazardous occupation of these bold voyagers is no longer
profitable. For many years, from 1873 to 1888, Captain Snow
persevered — years of varying success, sometimes fraught with an
ample return, but more often ending in disaster and shipwreck. The
list of vessels engaged in the business over a lengthy period, which
Captain Snow has compiled, shows that scarcely a single one
escaped a violent end, and the loss of life among their crews was
enormous. Hunting the sea-otter was indeed just the sort of
speculative venture in which bold and restless spirits are always
tempted to engage. In a lucky season the prizes were very great,
for the value of the furs was immense. The attendant dangers were
also great — your vessel was always liable to shipwreck ; your boats,
in which the actual hunting was done, might be swamped in an
open sea at a moment's notice ; the natives were frequently hostile,
and there was always a risk of your whole venture ending in the
confiscation of ship and cargo by Russian or Japanese orders, and
the incarceration of yourself and company as ' trespassers.'

Captain Snow, who is a Back Prizeman of the Royal Geographical
Society, made the charts of the Kuril Islands which are used by the
British Admiralty, and before plunging into his own adventures he
gives two excellent chapters on the islands and their inhabitants,
the Ainu.

A valuable description of the sea-otter, and its place in natural
history and commerce, are found in Appendices.

6 Mr. Edward Arnold's Auttcnm Announcements.

A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK.

By OWEN JONES,

Author of 'Ten Years' Gamekeeping,

And MARCUS WOODWARD.
With Photogravure Ilhistvations. Large Crown 8fo., cloth. 7s. 6d. net.

In this charming and romantic book we follow the gamekeeper in
his secret paths, stand by him while with deft lingers he arranges
his traps and snares, watch with what infinite care he tends his
young game through all the long days of spring and summer — and
in autumn and winter garners with equal eagerness the fruits of his
labour. He takes us into the coverts at night, and with him we
keep the long vigil — while poachers come, or come not.

Not the least interesting studies in the book are those of all the
creatures that come in for the keeper's special attention. Snapshot
follows snapshot of pheasant and partridge, fox and badger, stoat
and weasel, squirrel and dormouse, rook and crow, jackdaw and jay,
hawk and owl, rabbit and hare, hedgehog and rat, cat and dog — and
of all the little song-birds, the trees, herbs, and flowers that win the
affection of the keeper, or his disapproval, in accordance with their
helpfulness or hindrance in his work.

The authors know their subject through and through. This is a
real series of studies from life, and the notebook from which all the
impressions are drawn and all the pictures painted is the real note-
book of a real gamekeeper. Owen Jones has been a working game-
keeper for many years, and is the leading authority and writer on
gamekeeping subjects. In this new book he has had, in Marcus
Woodward, the advantage of a collaborator who shares his deep love
for all phases of woodcraft, and who has spent with him many long
days and nights studying the life of the woods and fields.

FLY-LEAVES FROM A FISHERMAN'S

DIARY.

By Captain G. E. SHARP.

With Photogravure Illustrations. Crown Svo. 5s. net.

This is a very charming little book containing the reflections on
things piscatorial of a ' dry-fly ' fisherman on a south country
stream. Although the Author disclaims any right to pose as an
expert, it is clear that he knows well his trout, and how to catch
them. He is an enthusiast, who thinks nothing of cycling fifteen
miles out for an evening's fishing, and home again when the ' rise '
is over. Indeed, he confesses that there is no sport he loves so
passionately, and this love of his art — surely dry-fly fishing is an

Mr. Edward ArnohVs Autumn Announcements. 7

art ? — makes for writing that is pleasant to read, even as Isaac
Walton's love thereof inspired the immortal pages of ' The Com-
pleat Angler.' Salisbury is the centre of the district in which the
author's scene is laid, and the lush herbage of the water-meadows,
the true English landscape, the clear channels, the waving river-
weeds, fill his heart with a joy and peace that he fmds nowhere else.
Perhaps for his true happiness we must add a brace or two of fine
trout, and of these there was no lack. Whether or not the reader
has the luck to share Captain Sharp's acquaintance with the
Wiltshire chalk-streams, he can hardly escape the fascination of
this delicately written tribute to their beauty.

TWENTY YEARS IN THE
HIMALAYA.

By Major the Hon. C. G. BRUCE, M.V.O.,

Fifth Gurkha Rifles.

Fully Ilhsirated. Demy Svo., cloth. i6s. net.

The Himalaya is a world in itself, comprising many regions which
differ widely from each other as regards their natural features, their
fauna and flora, and the races and languages of their inhabitants.
Major Bruce's relation to this world is absolutely unique — he has
journeyed through it, now in one part, now in another, sometimes
mountaineering, sometimes in pursuit of big game, sometimes in the
performance of his professional duties, for more than twenty years ;
and now his acquaintance with it under all its diverse aspects,
though naturally far from complete, is more varied and extensive
than has ever been possessed by anyone else. In this volume he
has not confined himself to considering the Himalaya as a field for
mountaineering, but has turned to account his remarkable stores of
experience, and combined with his achievements as climber and
explorer a picture such as no other hand could have drawn of the
whole Himalayan range in successive sections from Bhutan and
Sikkim to Chilas and the Karakoram; sketching the special feature?
of each as regard scenery, people, sport, and so forth, and pointing
out where necessary their bearing on facilities for transport and
travel. We would make special mention in this connection of the
account of a recent tour in Nepal ; here Major Bruce was much
assisted by his unusual familiarity with the native dialects, and the
vivid record of his impressions compensates to some extent for the
regrettable refusal of the native government to permit a visit to that
most tempting of all goals to a mountaineering expedition, Mount
Everest.

8 Mr. Edward Arnold's Autumn Announcements.

RECOLLECTIONS
OF AN OLD MOUNTAINEER.

By WALTER LARDEN.

With Photogravure Frontispiece and i6 Full-page Illustrations.
Demy 8vo., cloth. 14s. net.

There are a few men in every generation, such as A, F. Mummery
and L. Norman Neruda, who possess a natural genius for mountain-
eering. The ordinary lover of the mountains reads the story of their
climbs with admiration and perhaps a tinge of envy, but with no
thought of following in their footsteps ; such feats are not for him.
The great and special interest of Mr. Larden's book lies in the fact
that he does not belong to this small and distinguished class. He
tells us, and convinces us, that he began his Alpine career with no
exceptional endowment of nerve or activity, and describes, fully and
with supreme candour, how he made himself into what he very
modestly calls a second-class climber — not ' a Grepon-crack man,' but
one capable of securely and successfully leading a party of amateurs
over such peaks as Mont Collon or the Combin. This implies a
very high degree of competence, which in the days when Mr. Larden
first visited the Alps was possessed by an extremely small number
of amateur climbers, and which the great majority not only did not
possess, but never thought of aspiring to. Perhaps it is too much
to say that Mr. Larden aimed at it from the outset ; probably his
present powers far exceed the wildest of his early dreams ; but from
the very first he set himself, methodically and perseveringly, to
reach as high a standard as possible of mountaineering knowledge
and skill. Mr. Larden's name will always be specially associated
with AroUa, which has been his favourite climbing centre ; but his
experience of all parts of the Alps is unusually wide. His climbing
history is a brilliant illustration of the principle which Mr. Roosevelt
has been recently expounding with so much eloquence and emphasis,
that the road to success is by developing to the utmost our ordinary
powers and faculties, and that that road is open to all.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF
BRITISH FORESTRY.

By A. C. FORBES, F.H.A.S.,

Chief Forestry Inspector to the Department of Agriculture for Ireland.
Author of ' English Estate Forestry,' liTC.

Illustrated. Demy Svo., cloih. los. 6d. net.

The purpose of this volume is to survey the present position and
future possibilities of British Forestry under existing physical and eco-
nomic conditions. Modern labour problems and the growing scarcity

Mr. Edward Arnold's Auttimn Announcements, 9

of timber have brought out very clearly the importance of Afforesta-
tion, but in a thickly populated country any proposed change from
grazing or agriculture to Forestry on a large scale is a matter of
extreme difficulty. The Author therefore adopts a cautious attitude
in practice, although extremely enthusiastic in theory. He en-
deavours to show the relative position of the British Isles among
the countries of Northern and Central Europe in matters of Forestry
and timber consumption, the extent to which a forward movement
in the former respect is required, and the economic and sociological
agencies by which it is limited. The climate and soil of the United
Kingdom, and the manner in which Forestry practice is affected by
them, are discussed. The species most likely to prove of economic
value when grown on a large scale are dealt with, and the financial
results likely to follow. Finally, suggestions are made for placing
British Forestry on a national basis, with the co-operation of land-
owners, local authorities, and the State.

THE MISADVENTURES OF A
HACK CRUISER.

By F. CLAUDE KEMPSON,

Author of 'The "Green Finch ' Cruise.'

With 50 Illustrations from the Author's sketches.
Medium Svo., cloth. 6s. net.

Mr. Kempson's amusing account of ' The Green Finch Cruise,
which was published last year, gave deep delight to the joyous
fraternity of amateur sailor-men, and the success that book enjoyed
has encouraged him to describe a rather more ambitious cruise he
undertook subsequently. On this occasion the party, consisting of
three persons, included the Author's daughter—' a large flapper ' he
calls her— and they chartered a 7-toner, the Cock-a-Whoop, with
the intention of cruising from Southampton to the West Country
anchorages. The reasons of their failure and their misadventures,
never too serious, are described by ISIr. Kempson with great origin-
ality and raciness. He is not an expert, but he shows how anyone
accustomed to a sportsman's life can, with a little instruction and
common sense, have a thoroughly enjoyable time sailing a small
boat. The book is full of ' tips and wrinkles ' of all kinds, inter-
spersed with amusing anecdotes and reflections. The Author's
sketches are exquisitely humorous, and never more so than when he
is depicting his own substantial person.

10 Mr, Edward Arnold's Autumn Announcements.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND LIFE
OF FATHER TYRRELL.

By MAUD PETRE.
In Two Volumes. Demy 8vo., cloth. 21s. net.

The first volume, which is autobiographical, covers the period
from George Tyrrell's birth in 1861 to the year 1885, including an
account of his family, his childhood, schooldays, and youth in
Dublin ; his conversion from Agnosticism, through a phase of High
Church Protestantism to Catholicism ; his experiences in Cyprus
and Malta, where he lived as a probationer before entering the
Society of Jesus ; his early life as a Jesuit, with his novitiate and
first studies in scholastic philosophy and Thomism. This autobiog-
raphy, written in 1901, ends just before the death of his mother,
and was not carried any farther. It is edited with notes and
supplements to each chapter by M. D. Petre.

The second volume, which takes up the story where the first ends,
deals chiefly with the storm and stress period of his later years.
Large use is made of his own notes, and of his letters, of which a
great number have been lent by correspondents of all shades of
thought. Various documents of importance figure in this later
volume, in which the editor aims at making the history as complete
and objective as possible. Incidentally some account is given of the
general movement of thought, which has been loosely described as
' modernism,' but the chief aim of the writer will be to describe the
part which Father Tyrrell himself played in this movement, and the
successive stages of his mental development as he brought his
scholastic training to bear on the modern problems that confronted
him. The work ends with his death on July 15, 1909, and the
events immediately subsequent to his death.

THE DIARY OF A MODERNIST.

By WILLIAM SCOTT PALMER,

Author of ' An Agnostic's Progress,' etc.

Crown Svo., cloth. 53. net.

Mr. Scott Palmer's Diary is the attempt of a man of faith and
intellect to bring modern thought to bear on the ancient doctrines of
religion. His musings bear no resemblance to the essays at recon-
ciliation with which the latter part of the last century was only too

Mr. Edward Arnold's Autumn Announcements. n

familiar. Mr. Bergson, in whose philosophy the Diarist is steeped,
somewhere speaks of the disappearance of many problems, as
thought penetrates beyond and behind their place of origin, into a
region in which opposites are included and embraced. So Mr. Palmer,
as he considers the rites and ceremonies, the theologies old and new,
which the year brings before him, and sets them in relation with the
latest or the oldest philosophical thinking or the most recent
scientific generalization, shows that there is in man, if we do but
take him as a whole and not in artificial sections, a power by which
faith and knowledge come to be at one.

The Diary covers nearly ten months — from July, 1909, to May,
1910. It is full of variety, yet has the unity due to one purpose
strongly held and clearly conceived. A rare sincerity and a fine
power of expression characterize this striking book.

The title shows that religion is interpreted in the ' modernist '
fashion ; but modernism is a method, not a system, and the writer
is more than an exponent of other men's thoughts. If there are any
leaders in the great movement to which he is more indebted than he
is to the movement itself, they are the late Father George Tyrrell (to
whom the book is dedicated), and Baron Friedrick von Hugel.

HEREDITARY CHARACTERS.

By CHARLES WALKER, M.Sc, M.R.C.S.,

Director of Research in the Glasgow CancerIHospital.

One Volume. Demy ?)Vo. 8s. 6d. net.

There is probably no scientific subject which excites so deep an
interest at the present moment as that which is dealt with in Dr.
Charles Walker's book. Mankind has always vaguely recognized
the fact of heredity ; fortes crsantur foriibns et bonis somehow or other,
but it is only recently that more precise information has been sought
and achieved as to how and to what extent mental and bodily
characteristics are transmitted from parents to their offspring.
With this increase of information has come also a realization of the
immense practical importance of obtaining correct conclusions on
the subject for persons concerned with almost every department of
social progress. Such persons will find in Dr. Walker's book a
lucid and concise statement of the nature of the problems to be
solved, the present state of scientific knowledge on the subject, and
the steps by which that knowledge has been arrived at. Dr. Walker
makes it clear that he is very much alive to those more remote
bearings of the inquiry to which we have referred above, but he
does not himself pursue them. His object has been to enable those
who are interested in the main question, without being biological
experts, to form a judgment on it for themselves.

12 Mr. Edward Arnold's Autumn Announcements.

PREACHERS AND TEACHERS.

By JAMES GILLILAND SIMPSON, M.A., D.D.,

Canon of Manchester; Recently Principal of the Leeds Clergy School.
Author of 'Christian Ideals,' 'Christus Crucifixus,' etc

One Volume. Crown 8vo. 5s. net.

' Preachers and Teachers ' opens with a study of famous and
characteristic EngHsh, or more accurately British, preachers.
These are Hugh Latimer, Robert Hall, Edward Irving, Robertson
of Brighton, H. P. Liddon, C. H. Spurgeon, and John Caird,
representing very different types of pulpit eloquence. This is
followed by chapters descriptive of the personality, teaching, or
method of certain Christian doctors, ancient and modern : St.
Augustine, St. Martin of Tours, Bishop Butler, and Edward Irving.
The last of these, having been dealt with briefly as an orator in
Chapter I., is here described more fully as a leader of religious
thought, with the help of private documents in the possession of the
writer, which present, as he believes, a more accurate picture of the
man and his true place in the history of religion than the somewhat
distorted portrait of popular imagination. The volume contains
also a survey of preaching in the Church of England during the
seventeenth century, beginning with Lancelot Andrewes in the age
immediately succeeding the Reformation, and passing on through
Laud and Jeremy Taylor to Tillotson, who verges on the Georgian
age. The whole book is designed to lead up to the final chapter on
the Modern Pulpit, in which the Author discusses the principles
which ought to guide the preacher in his presentation of the Christian
message to the men and women of to-day. This chapter frankly
accepts the ideal of the Christian preacher as the prophet who is
bound to deliver the one Truth, as he is able to see it, to the critical
conscience of his hearers. This involves, among other matters, a
discussion of the pulpit and politics, which is not likely to pass
unchallenged.

A CENTURY OF EMPIRE, 1800-1900.

VOLUME III., FROM 1867-1900.
By the Right Hon. Sir HERBERT MAXWELL, Bart., M.P.,

Author of 'The Life of Wellington," etc.

With Photogravure Portraits. Demy 8w. 14s. net.

Little need be said with regard to the concluding volume of Sir
Herbert Maxwell's great history, which covers the period from 1867
to 1900. In one important respect it differs from its predecessors.
Only a small minority of readers can have a personal recollection of
the events dealt with in even the latter part of the second volume,
but the third treats of matters within the memory of most of us, and

Mr. Edward Arnold's AtUiniui Announcements. 13

might well be called ' A History of Our Own Times.' This fact
alone would be enough to give the third volume an enhanced
interest, but there can be no doubt that the subject-matter is also
more picturesque and arresting than the somewhat humdrum story
of political and national life during the middle period of the century.
The year 1867 marks a merely arithmetical division, and has nothing
epoch-making about it, but 1870 saw the opening of a new and
momentous chapter in the history of Europe and the world, which
is very far from being closed yet. Sir Herbert Maxwell's clear and
compact narrative cannot fail to help us to realize its earlier
development in their true perspective.

THE SPIRIT OF POWER.

Z\)C Cburcb in tbe Barl^ SecoiiD Century.
By the Rev. ERNEST A. EDGHILL, M.A., B.D.,

Sub-Warden of the College of St. Saviouk in Southwakk ;

HuLSEAN Lecturer in the Univekshy of Cambridge; Lecturer in Ec^lesia tical

History in King's College, London, etc.

Crown 8vo., cloth. 5s. net.

These studies are preliminary to a larger work on Early Church
History which the Author has in hand. The method adopted in the
present volume will be seen from the following summary of its
contents :

Chapter I. Power and Weakness. The Religions of the Early
Roman Empire. — H. The Power of Attraction. — HI. The
Power of Purity: The Church's Moral Message. — IV. The
Power of Suffering : the Origins of Persecutions in the First
Century. — V. The Causes of Persecution. — VI. The Results
of Persecution. — VII. The Spirit of Love. — VHI. The Spirit
of Discipline.

THE BOOK OF BOOKS.

B GiuDB Of tbc MMe.
By Canon LONSDALE RAGG, B.D.,

Rector of Ticke.vcote and Prebendary of Euckden in Lincoln Cathedral.

Croivn 'Svo., cloth. Probable price, 5s. net.

An attempt to represent from the point of view of the ' New
Learning ' the various aspects of the Bible. Its themes are the
diversity in unity embodied in the canon of Holy Scripture ; the
problems raised by present-day criticism and archaeology ; the

14 Mr. Edward Arnold's Autumn Announcements.

nature and scope of inspiration ; the influence of the Bible (past,
present, and future) in the education of mankind ; the romance of
the English Bible ; the debt which the Bible owes to the land of its
birth ; the new aspect assumed by the old controversy with Physical
Scientists ; the principles on which the Bible may be compared with
other 'Sacred Books'; the permanent value of the Bible — its
meaning and its message. But many other questions are raised on
the way, which cannot, in every case, be answered at present. The
Author is one of those who are convinced that the Bible has a great
future before it, a future which is all the brighter and not the
gloomier as a result of modern criticism ; and he endeavours to
exhibit to the thoughtful reader, in language as little technical as
possible, some of the grounds of his conviction.

In the present volume the Bible is treated in a more general way,
though concrete illustrations are given to make clear the principles
enunciated. There are two other volumes in contemplation in
which the Author proposes to deal with the Old Testament and the
New Testament separately, and to describe (still as far as possible
in untechnical language) what may be known of the origin and
growth, on the human side, of the various elements of those two
sacred literatures.

HOW TO DEAL WITH LADS.

B 1bau£)booK of Cburcb Work.
By the Rev. PETER GREEN, M.A.,

Rector of Sacred Trinity, Salford.

With a Preface by the Right Rev. LORD BISHOP OF
GLOUCESTER.

Crown Svo., cloth. 2S. 6d. net.

This book, which should be of real interest and value to all who
are engaged in work among lads, attempts to describe in detail how
to deal with a working boy from the time when he leaves day-
school and goes to work till he settles down as a married man, the
object throughout being to make him a useful, intelligent, and
attached member of his Church.

The worker, and the qualifications necessary for the work, are
first discussed, and the popular view of the importance of athletic
ability for success with lads is controverted. The Lads' Club and
its organization is then treated, with special reference to its con-
nection with the Church, and to the question of religious tests.
Social, athletic, and recreative agencies in connection with the
club are considered, and the Bible-class, with the kindred subjects
of Church attendance, private prayers, and visitation during sickness.

Mr. Edward Arnold's AiUii}]in Announcements. 15

is gone into very fully. This leads to a chapter on Confirmation
and one on First Communion, with the preparation necessary for
each. A special point is made of the need for keeping hold on the
lad after his Contirmation, and means to this end are fully discussed.
The last chapter deals with special cases, with soldiers and sailors,
and with boys who have moved away to live elsewhere. The whole
book claims to be a record of methods which have been put to the
test of experience, and the Bishop of Gloucester, under whom the
Author served at Leeds Parish Church, contributes a Preface.

THE LITTLE WIZARD OF WHITE
CLOUD HILL.

By Mrs. F. E. CRICHTON,

Author of ' Peef-in-the- World.'

With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. ^s. 6d.

This story, chiefly intended for young people, centres round the
attractive personality of a little boy called Basil, whose happy and
adventurous doings can hardly fail to delight both children and
' grown-ups.'

White Cloud Hill is the entrance to the land of Far-away, a
wonderful fairy region of Basil's imagination, which he loves to visit
in his dreams. His adventures begin when he goes to stay with
Cousin Marcella, a stern lady who has had an unfortunate quarrel
with his father, and whom Basil has always thought of with
alarm. The visit, however, has the best of results, for Basil, by his
irresistible charm, effects such a happy reconciliation between his
elders that he earns the very name which he would have most
desired for himself—' The Little Wizard of White Cloud Hill.'

The thread of seriousness woven into the story does not interfere
with its charm of freshness. The Author's handling of all her
characters is most sympathetic, and she shows a wide understanding
of children and their ways. Her pages, moreover, are full of little
things about children, such as children love. A capital book for
reading aloud or reading to oneself.

New Edition.

SIX RADICAL THINKERS.

By JOHN MacCUNN.

Professor of Philosophy in the Unmversitv of Liveki'ool.

A New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo., cloth. 3s. 6d. net.

' Professor MacCunn's studies of eminent Radicals deal with men of very
diverse powers and attainments, yet with a critical detachment from all kinds
of sectional politics that is indeed admirable.' — Wcstminstey Gazette.

1 6 Mr. Edward Arnold's Aiitinnn Announcements.

NEW NOVELS.

HOWARDS END.

By E. M. FORSTER,

Author of 'A Room with a View,' ' The Longest Journey,' etc.

Crozvn Svo., cloth. 6s.

Readers of Mr. Forster's former books, of ' A Room with a View '
and ' The Longest Journey,' will heartily welcome this fresh work
from so facile and felicitious a pen. In ' Howards End ' the author
thoroughly fulfils the expectations raised by his earlier works, and
adds still further to his reputation as a novelist. For the subject of
his new story of English social life he has chosen an old Hertford-
shire country-house, round which centre the fortunes of that interest-
ing group of characters which he handles with that delicate and
skilful touch with which his readers are already familiar. Here
once again we find the same delightful humour, the same quiet but
mordant satire, the flashes of brilliant dialogue to which this author
has long accustomed us. A thread of romance runs through the
story, from which depend like pearls those clever pen-pictures and
exquisite character sketches, in the portrayal of which Mr. Forstcr
has already shown himself so much of an adept.

THE RETURN.

By WALTER DE LA MARE.

Croivn 8vo., cloth. 6s.

' The Return ' is the story of a man suddenly confronted, as if by
the caprice of chance, with an ordeal that cuts him adrift from every
certain hold he has upon the world immediately around him. He
becomes acutely conscious of those unseen powers which to many,
whether in reality or in imagination, are at all times vaguely present,
haunting life vv^ith their influences. In this solitude — a solitude of
the mind which the business of everyday life confuses and drives
back — he fares as best he can, and gropes his way through his
difficulties, and wins his way at last, if not to peace, at least to a
clearer and quieter knowledge of self.

Mr. Edward Arnold's Aiifiuun Announcements. 17

THE LITTLE GRAY MAN.

By JANE WARDLE,

Author ok ' The Pas^ue P'lowkr,' 'Makgeky Pigeon,' etc.

Crown 8vo., cloth. 6s.

The writer is one of the very few present-day novelists who have
consistently followed up the aim they originally set themselves — that
of striking a mean between the Realist and tlie Romanticist. In her
latest novel, 'The LittleGray Alan,' which Miss Wardle herself believes
to contain the best work she has so far produced, it will be found
that she has as successfully avoided the bald one-sidedness of mis-
called ' Realism ' on the one hand, as the sloppy sentimentality of the
ordinary 'Romance' on the other. At the same time, ' The Little
Gray Man' contains both realism and romance in full measure, in the
truer sense of both words. The scheme of the book is in itself novel,
the intrigue being set out in the words of one of the characters — a
supremely selfish, worthless young man — who is as little in sympathy
Avith the nobler-minded Gentry, the unconventional ' hero,' as with
the arch-villain Mandevil himself. The self-revealing touches by
which Carfax is made to lay bare the worthlessness of his own aims
make up an extraordinary vivid character, while at the same time
acting as foil to the others with whom he is brought in contact.
No less vivid are the studies of Gentry himself, of the two brothers,
round whose life-long feud the plot centres, and of Joan, their
daughter and niece. A pleasant love-interest runs through the
story, in conjunction with an exciting ' plot.'

THE PURSUIT.

By FRANK SAVILE,

Author of 'Seekers,' ' The Desert Venture,' etc.

Croivn 8vo., cloth. 6s.

That the risk of being kidnapped, to which their great riches
exposes multi-millionaires, is a very real one, is constantly being
reaffirmed in the reports that are published of the elaborate pre-
cautions many of them take to preserve their personal liberty. In its
present phase, where there is the great wealth on one side and a
powerful gang — or rather syndicate — of clever rascals on the other,
it possesses many characteristics appealing to those who enjoy a
good thrilling romance. Mr. Savile has already won his spurs in
this field, but his new tale should place him well in the front ranks
of contemporary romancers. The protagonists of 'The Pursuit'
are Anglo-American, with a background of Moors, and the action is
laid round the person of the little grandson of ' the richest man in
America.' It would not be fair to readers to adumbrate the plot
further, but they may rest assured that they will find here a fine
open-air tale of modern adventure, with interesting clean-cut
characters, and some really full-blooded villainy.

i8 Mr. Edward Arnold's Autumn Announcements.

NEW SCIENTIFIC BOOKS.

PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY.

3t6 jeearing on SSiologs an& /llbeDicine.
By JAMES C. PHILIP, M.A., Ph.D., D.Sc,

Assistant Professor in thk Department of Chemistry, Imperial College of
Science and Technology.

2)12 pp. Crown 8vo., cloth. 7s. 6d. net.

The advances of Physical Chemistry have an important bearing
on the study of all living structures, whether included under Biology,
Botany, or Physiology proper. The present book gives the results
of the most modern researches in the application of physico-chemical
laws to the processes which are characteristic of the living organism,
and illustrative examples are specially chosen from the fields of
biology, physiology and medicine. An elementary knowledge of
physics, chemistry, and mathematics is alone assumed in the reader.

THE PRACTICAL DESIGN OF
MOTOR-CARS.

By JAMES GUNN,

Lecturer on Motor-Car Engineering at the Glasgow
AND West of Scotland Technical College.

Ftilly Illustrated. Demy 8vo. los. 6d. net.
A book for all designers and draughtsmen engaged in the practical
manufacture of petrol engines and chassis for motor-cars. Each
part of the mechanism is taken in detail, and the leading types of the
various parts are compared and discussed, often with criticism based
on exceptional experience in practice, yet always without bias or
prejudice. The simple descriptions and clear diagrams will also
render the book of value to the non-technical man, who as owner or
prospective buyer of a car is interested in its mechanism.

MODERN METHODS OF WATER
PURIFICATION.

By JOHN DON, A.M.I.Mech. Eng.,
And JOHN CHISHOLM.
Illustrated. Demy ^vo. 15s. net.
Mr. Don, whose paper on ' The Filtration and Purification of
Water for Public Supply ' was selected by the Council of the Insti-
tution of Mechanical Engineers for the first award of the ' Water
Arbitration Prize,' has here collaborated with Mr. Chisholm, the
manager of the Airdrie, Coatbridge and District Water Works.
The book will interest, not only the water engineer and Public
Health Officer, but also all who recognize the paramount importance
to modern towns of a water-supply above suspicion. A full
description is given of modern methods of filtration.

My. Edward Arnold's Autninn Announccuicnts. 19

ARNOLD'S GEOLOGICAL SERIES.

General Editor: DR. J. E. MARK, F.R.S.

THE GEOLOGY OF WATER-SUPPLY.

By HORACE B. WOODWARD, F.R.S., F.G.S.
^20 pp. Crown Svo., cloth. 75. 6d. net.

A full account of the geological water-bearing strata, especially
in reference to Great Britain, and of all the various sources — wells,
springs, streams, and rivers — from which water-supplies are drawn.
The influence of the rainfall, percolation, evaporation from the soil
and by vegetation, as well as other allied subjects, are discussed.

THE GEOLOGY OF BUILDING STONES.

By J. ALLEN HOWE, B.Sc,

Curator of the Museum of Practical Geology.

CroK'n ^vo., cloth, -js. 6d. net.

Since the appearance of Professor Hull's treatise in 1872, no
single book has been brought out in this country dealing exclusively
with the Geology of Building Stones. Many valuable papers have
been written on special branches, and lists of building stones, etc.,
have been incorporated in the standard works upon building con-
struction, but in few of these has the geological aspect been developed
so as to link up the facts concerning the occurrence, physical
properties, and resistance to wear of the natural materials as they
exhibit themselves to a geologist.

In the present volume the author has especially studied the
requirements of architects in Great Britain, so that it should prove
not only a useful guide for the student, but also a reliable and
handy book of reference for the practising architect. Although
building stones occupy the bulk of the space, most of the points
where geology and architecture meet are shortly touched upon.

A TEXT-BOOK OF GEOLOGY.

By PHILIP LAKE, M.A., F.G.S.,

Royal Geographical Society Lecturer in Regional and Physical Geogr.\phy
IN THE University of Cambridge;

And R. H. RASTALL, M.A., F.G.S.,

Fellow of Christ's College, Camurioge; Demonstrator in Geology in the
University of Cambridge.

Illustrated. Demy Svo. i6s. net.

The authors here give within moderate compass a complete
treatise suitable alike for the student and for all who desire to
become acquainted with Geology on modern lines. The first part
of the book deals more particularly with Physical Geology — that is,
the study of the earth as it exists to-day, the moulding processes
which we can now see at work, and the land and water formations
which thence result. The second part deals with Stratigraphical
Geology, or the unravelling of the earth's previous history, the
stratigraphy of the British Isles being considered in detail.

20 Mr. Edward Arnold's New Books.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED.

WAR AND THE ARME BLANCHE.

By Erskine Childers, Editor of Vol. V. of '"The Times"

History of the War in South Africa.'
With Introduction by Lord Roberts. 7s. 6d. net,

' Whether he be right or wrong, Mr. Childers's subject is sufficiently serious,
and his indictment of present views sufficiently convincing, to command attention
and an answer equally logically argued.' — Spectator.

ACROSS THE SAHARA.

From Tripoli to Bornu.

By Hanns Vischer, M.A., PoHtical Service, Northern Nigeria.

With Illustrations and a Map. 12s. 6d. net.

' Mr. Vischer's narrative is one of enthralling interest.' — DaHy Graphic.

A SUMMER ON THE CANADIAN PRAIRIE.

By Georgina Binnie Clark.

Second Impression. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 6s.

' Miss Clark tells the story of two English girls' first visit to Canada with a
lightness and reality of touch that make it more readable than many a novel.' —
Daily Mail.

A HISTORY OF THE LONDON HOSPITAL.

By E. W. Morris, Secretary of the Hospital.
With numerous Illustrations. 6s. net.

ANNE DOUGLAS SEDGWICK'S NEW NOVEL.

FRANKLIN KANE.

By A:-:xE Douglas Sedgwick, Author of ' Valerie Upton,'
' Amabel Channice,' etc. 6s.

' A figure never to be forgotten.' — Standard.

' There are no stereotyped patterns here.' — Daily Chronicle.

' A very graceful and charming comedy.' — Manchester Guardian.

A STEPSON OF THE SOIL.

By Mary J. H. Skrine.

Second Impression, 6s.

' j\Irs. Skrine's admirable novel is one of those unfortunately rare books
which, without extenuating the hard facts of life, maintain and raise one's belief
in human nature. The story is simple, but the manner of its telling is admirably
uncommon. Her portraits are quite extraordinarily vivid.' — Spectator.

LONDON : EDWARD ARNOLD, 41 & 43 MADDOX STREET, W.

265387

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